


On the Birth of Trembling Winter

by Liquid_Lyrium



Series: Advent [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: 31 Days of Ineffables, 31 Days of Ineffables Advent Calendar Challenge 2019 (Good Omens), 6000 Years of Hypervigilance, Aftercare, Angst and Humor, Angst with a Happy Ending, Astronomy, Aziraphale Has Self-Esteem Issues (Good Omens), Aziraphale Has a Praise Kink, Crowley Has PTSD (Supernatural), Crowley Has Self-Esteem Issues (Good Omens), Crowley Has a Praise Kink (Good Omens), Dom/sub, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Ethereal Weirdness, Extended Metaphors, Gentle Dom Aziraphale (Good Omens), Gold & Silver, Gratuitous references to Hamlet, Hurt/Comfort, Intercrural Sex, Kissing, Light Dom/sub, M/M, Mild Blood, Minor Injuries, Mistletoe, Oral Sex, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Other, POV Alternating, Praise Kink, Prompt Fic, References to Hamlet, References to Macbeth, References to Norse Religion & Lore, References to Shakespeare, References to The Tempest, Romantic Gestures, Skin Hunger, Switching, The Mortifying Ordeal of Being Known, Touch-Starved
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-02
Updated: 2020-01-26
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:33:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 34,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21646843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liquid_Lyrium/pseuds/Liquid_Lyrium
Summary: “May I tell you something? About mistletoe?”It feels like a trap. A trick. Like Loki telling Hodur:Go on then, just a bit of fun, join in with the rest, I’ll help you aim.Crowley nods, because it’s better than trying to say the unsayable.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: Advent [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1561270
Comments: 115
Kudos: 271





	1. A Stupid Tradition

**Author's Note:**

> Work title updated and comes from A Winter's Tale by Shakespeare. First chapter is teen (Mistletoe prompt), second chapter is explicit (Gold & Silver prompt). Third chapter is also explicit (Pine prompt). The first two can be read as stand alone ~~but why would you want to?~~

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _What if I only went so fast because I never wanted to get caught? What if I never meant for you to catch up?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have some angst and spicy smooches. (But for real, after sixty centuries it's gotta be hard to turn off that constant "oh no we can't ohshitohshitohshit" fear. It once took me days to come down from adrenaline levels that had been elevated for at least three-four months due to agonizing fear and stress, so I can only imagine how long it would take to come down off that adrenaline rush if you've been living with it for millennia.) Here is the [link to the tumblr post](https://liquidlyrium.tumblr.com/post/189431976800/a-stupid-tradition) of this. Here's the day 1 prompt for Mistletoe!

It’s a stupid tradition.

 _It’s poison,_ his bones whisper.

Crowley’s glad it’s mostly gone out of fashion. London’s so much easier to navigate these days. Not that he likes navigating London in winter. He’s conceded to the season with a black pea coat tailored sharp enough to cut glass and a wrapping-paper red scarf at this throat—neither of which come off, even when he’s indoors.

Except that after the failed apocalypse, for the first time in ages, London is _brimming_ with mistletoe. Courtesy of one Antichrist subconscious, no doubt. Crowley’s found himself barred from no less than three of his favorite pubs due to an outright infestation of the stuff. He’s tempted to call Anathema to see if she’s having just as much trouble, but humans are always a bit more free than supernatural beings to ignore belief.

 _It’s toxic_ , some ghost says beneath his skin.

Probably why it’s so good at warding off his ilk. A poison he’s not immune to. He sees the tell-tale signs of another kissing bough. The shrill eruption at the glee of discovery, the coquettish _oh-really-should wes_ -plural, and raucous encouragement of onlookers surrounding a pair of twitterpated mortals. Cell phones out and aimed at the oh-so-perfect and performative act beneath the storefront’s awning. He changes course to cross the street; on his way, Crowley shoulders into several shoppers laden with boxes, sweaters and watches and socks and highly breakable testaments to capitalism tumbling to the pavement.

 _It’s parasitic,_ hisses the acid where his bloodstream should be.

His feet are cold, and the press of half-frozen denim (black, always black) against his legs feels more like knives than chafing. His feet take him where his mind always goes when he allows himself to think of comfort.

 _It’s not for you_ , the words echo inside his hollow chest.

Crowley bullies his way through the door of the bookshop, bringing in cold air behind him. His glasses fog up for a few moments clearing at his glare. Most shops are just thinking about closing at this time of the evening, but this is not most shops. By the empty reception, the demon assumes the shop has been closed for hours.

“Is that you Crowley?” The angel’s voice drifts through the maze. Only Deadalus could hope to compete with what the angel has crafted here.

“A piece of him.” Somehow he can _feel_ the angel smile, like it’s heat in the floorboards, and a moment later there it is. Radiant and shining. Well worth the price of four gloomy words.

“You know that reminds me, there’s a new production of Hamlet—oh Crowley, dear, you look like you’ve frozen through! Come in, let me make you a hot toddy.” The angel gestures for him to come further in.

Crowley shrugs, which is when he realizes his shoulders are already living beside his ears. “Sounds good, angel. So what’s the twist on Hamlet this time?” He subtly dips his chin into his scarf as he saunters vaguely forward.

“It’s going to be on ice, in a skating rink! Isn’t that so marvellously creative? I think they’ve recruited a few former Olympians to play some of the leads.” Aziraphale falls into step beside him, warm as a furnace. A flaming sword, even.

“Abridged?” He’s blatantly hopeful.

“Oh no, it’s going to be the full production! Based on the Second Quarto, of course.”

“Of course,” Crowley hides the bitter scowl of his lips behind his scarf, but Aziraphale’s eyes twinkle merrier than all the fairy lights in London put together.

“It’s opening next weekend, and-”

“I take it you already bought the tickets?”

“You don’t have to go!” Aziraphale hastily says, the smile dropping quickly from his face.

“Don’t be stupid,” Crowley grumbles, looking away, his eyes catching on a new stack of first and second edition prints of Jules Verne novels. They look like untranslated, virginial French copies. Despite Aziraphale’s rubbish French, the angel has made his opinion on the treatment and translation of Jules’ works _known_. “Not gonna make you waste a perfectly good ticket.”

The smile returns and even the most indirect sliver of it feels like it could cut him down at the knees. “I do have some blankets set aside for the occasion.” Ah, shit, there’s that fucking happy wiggle. The pleased little bounce of the angel’s heels.

_Fucking unbearable._

“Better bring along a couple thermoses of hot toddies too,” there isn’t a cool way to shove one’s hands under their armpits for warmth, but damned if Crowley won’t try to find it. “I can’t be seen attending _Hamlet on Ice_ sober. People might get ideas.”

Aziraphale chuckles as they round another stack of shelves. He’s reorganized again. Layout fifty-seven, if Crowley isn’t mistaken, but the angel tends to rearrange his shop more than usual during the holiday season to discourage anyone thinking of actually purchasing one of the books as a gift, should they be a ‘repeat offender’ as Aziraphale calls any potential customer who has darkened his doorstep more than once.

“What sort of ideas would those be, pray tell?”

All of Crowley’s smart answers die on his tongue as he sees it hanging over the threshold to the back room. He stops in his toe-frozen tracks.

Mistletoe.

A ward and a mirror all at once.

Aziraphale stops a few steps ahead of him. “Crowley?”

He can barely hear it above the pounding in his temples. Above the cold snap, broken-tree crack in his frozen hands.

It’s over.

It’s over.

It’s over.

He’s not wanted here. Not in this place. Not anymore. It’s over. Relegated to the front, to be shooed along when it’s time for the doors to shut.

“You’ve decorated,” Crowley nods up at the door frame, finally finding his words and someone else’s voice.

Aziraphale twists the ring at the base of his little finger, the imprint of wings worn away. “I, er, yes, I did. Do you, I’m sorry was it too-? Only I was hoping," the angel bites his lip. “I was hoping it wouldn’t be too-it’s just a silly tradition, I know it’s for humans, but it’s-sometimes it’s-”

The world seems a bit less underwater and less like he’s looking through the Bentley’s windshield in a blizzard. The demon suddenly realizes that he’s breathing again for the first time in six or seven minutes.

“What?”

Aziraphale can’t meet him in the eye, looking everywhere but at Crowley, wringing his hands.

“I shouldn’t have presumed. I should’ve—I only thought! Oh, blast it all with tiny marshmallows on top. Should have said something, but saying something hasn’t seemed to have gotten the job done, so I thought- _dreadful._ Badly done, Aziraphale. Absolutely dreadful!”

Behind the lenses of his glasses Crowley blinks slowly. “Angel,” he interrupts when the other immortal being pauses to draw breath he doesn’t need, “I can’t—you know mistletoe is a demon repellant, right?”

 _“Oh!”_ Aziraphale drops his hands, turning a magnificent shade of pink. An improvement over Old Hamlet’s ghost pale. “Oh, Crowley, it’s false. It’s not real mistletoe! I wouldn’t, oh my dear thing, I’m so sorry you even thought that!” The angel looks more distressed than ever.

A smile sews itself over Crowley’s lips painfully, prophetic soul full of dread even as he asks, “You were saying something about a tradition?”

Aziraphale makes a noise in the back of his throat. An almost musical hum that’s the offspring of a squeak.

“For humans but sometimes…?”

The angel puts a hand over his lips.

“You were hoping it wasn’t too…?”

Aziraphale’s hands are clasped together in front of his mouth now, as if praying.

“Saying something hasn’t gotten what job done…?”

“Crowley,” something soft and beseeching lives in Aziraphale’s throat.

 _I'm poison,_ protest his bones.

He looks away, swivelling on his too-cool and not-warm-enough boots, “You know, if I were Frigg, I think I would have just shouted at the stuff. Give it a good, preemptive telling off.” He doesn’t approach the doorway, veers left and orbits around it.

“Crowley, I’ve been trying _so hard_ to tell you for the past few months-”

 _I'm toxic,_ the ghost beneath his skin insists.

“Of course, she had a very low opinion of mistletoe didn’t she? I can’t fault her there. Can’t say I’m fond of the thing myself.” The demon drags his fingers along a bookshelf, leaving comet-shaped voids against the dust.

“I just feel like every time I try to _reciprocate_ -" Aziraphale turns in place, desperately trying to pin Crowley down with those eyes of his.

 _I'm parasitic,_ the acid carves beneath his flesh.

“How d’you make a spear out of that stuff anyway? It’s all a bit scraggly, in’it? Just a big noodle-y mess of a weed perched up in some tree branches,” Crowley raises his voice a little, zigging where he had previously been zagging to avoid that gaze.

“And you keep trying to change the subject-!” Aziraphale loses a bit of his Heavenly patience, no longer a soft-spoken thing but the Guardian of the Eastern Gate.

 _I'm not for you,_ the reminder echoes within his chest, with every heartbeat.

“I mean, an arrow makes a _bit_ more sense, it’s smaller, yeah? Do you think the authors of the Eddas ever tried it?” He doesn’t know why he’s yelling, other than the fact that he was built for yelling out questions without reserve or censure.

“Crowley, just tell me what speed you need me to go!” The angel’s shout practically shakes the whole block. Rivulets of plaster and dust rain down from the ceiling like snow.

He’s caught by the full force of those eyes, desperate and hopeful and eager to please. Full of tender things he’s taught himself over and over aren't for his kind.

Crowley doesn’t have an answer—he never expected to get here. Except they aren’t really _here_ , are they? _It’s just a new cycle._ A new phase of waiting for the other shoe to drop, for the next world-ending war between Heaven and Hell to begin.

He just shakes his head, and makes a sound like he can’t decide what the ‘J’ in between his chosen names stands for today.

Slowly, so slowly that a new planetary system must form at the edges of the universe in the time it takes, Aziraphale sidles up beside Crowley. “My dear?”

What speed could they possibly go?

“D’you know that the Norse gods threw shit at Baldur for fun and it all bounced right off? Invulnerable. Perfect. Until Loki found out about the mistletoe.”

“You still look cold,” Aziraphale decides, and links his arm around Crowley’s. For a moment Crowley is less a man-shaped being and more an exclamation-point-shaped being. The heat, however, is irresistible, and Crowley presses into it a moment later.

“Aziraphale,” but there’s no follow through. He can’t say _we can’t_ because yes, technically _they can._ Of course, they always _could_ , it just wasn’t advisable. Wasn’t safe. Isn’t safe. Isn’t safe. Isn’t safe, the warning in his head still on repeat after fifty or sixty centuries. “It’s-” his throat fails again.

“Tell me more,” Aziraphale says quietly, gently promenading them about the space. As if they’re at a park.

“Loki tricked his brother into doing it. Not quite a Cain and Abel echo, but something like.”

“I’d forgotten,” the purported bookseller claims dubiously, surrounded on all sides by every story put to paper he can get his hands on.

_You may be the liesmith, but I’m still Loki and you are Baldur. I was there when the Balts loaned out the words to make his name. Do you remember that? The things and the longhouses and mead? The stories they would weave? I’m the mistletoe. I’ll choke you, destroy you. A parasite constricting the life out of the host. I’ll take too much, need too much. Sew my mouth shut, tie me underground, drip my own snake venom in my eye before I let myself do any of that to you._

“Baldur was shining and beautiful. Nothing unclean could be in his hall in Asgard. Reckon his light must’ve looked like a halo. Think any of your lot have anything to do with his stories? Hope not. Always feels cheap when that happens.”

“Not as far as I know,” Aziraphale says, reaching over to pat Crowley’s arm with the hand that isn’t looped around his elbow.

“Undone by a plant,” Crowley’s throat tightens on him. “Would have made more sense if it choked him as he slept.”

“Isn’t that the lovely thing about human stories? They don’t always make the logical choice.” He hates how much he’s melting into that blazing warmth along his side. Softness at his hip and comfort at the press of their shoulders. “May I tell you something? About mistletoe?”

It feels like a trap. A trick. Like Loki telling Hodur: _Go on then, just a bit of fun, join in with the rest, I’ll help you aim._

Crowley nods, because it’s better than trying to say the unsayable.

“Some of the most lovely birds depend on it.” The serpent blinks behind his glasses. Of all the things Aziraphale could have said, he wasn’t expecting that. “Silky flycatchers, the mistletoebird. Hundreds of birds really. Mistletoe is quite good for nesting, and the berries provide food. It isn’t just birds that depend on it either!”

“There is _not_ a bird called the mistletoebird.”

“Oh, there absolutely is,” Aziraphale says, eyes twinkling. “A type of flowerpecker from Australia. He’s a handsome chap with black plumage and a dash of red at his throat.”

“Hhhghk.” Crowley curls in around his gut, still leeching warmth from the angel. Of course this bloody angel who isn’t clear on whether dolphins are mammals or fish knows every detail about some blasted bird fifteen thousand kilometers away. The absolute bastard.

“Oh my. Look at that.”

Aziraphale looks up, and Crowley follows his gaze to the threshold separating them from hot drink and the false sprig of _Viscum album_ hopefully hung there.

The absolute bastard.

Crowley’s free hand darts out to grip the door frame for dear life.

Aziraphale shifts, standing across from Crowley, holding his unanchored hand in both of his. Waiting patiently.

There’s an awful feeling in his chest. Like a sphere of water is about to lose its shape. A hundred and fifty days of rain waiting to spill over. _Are we really here? We can’t be here yet. It’s too soon._

“We don’t have to,” the angel says quietly, fingertips tracing along Crowley’s knuckles like they’re the most delicate thing he’s ever touched. “Someday, I think I’d like to, but we don’t have to. We don’t have to go to _Hamlet on Ice_. We don’t have to go to the Ritz or go on picnics, I don’t care what we do as long as… as long as we…” He looks up at Crowley pointedly, “We’ve come too far and fought too hard for this to just… not _do_ anything with it.” Aziraphale drops his gaze to the hand between his, sounding just a little less sure, “Don’t you think so?”

“Angel,” his throat sticks again. _What if there’s no speed? No speed at all? What if I only went so fast because I never wanted to get caught? What if I never meant for you to catch up?_

Aziraphale lifts his hand, his head bending just two degrees, but then the angel stops. Thinking better of it. That shape inside his chest breaks, with _such_ a noise it’s not serpent, demon, or mortal; the sphere spills over and loses its tension. Threatens to leak out of his traitorous, suddenly too-human eyes.

“I-” Aziraphale stops short, and just _looks_ at Crowley with those perfect eyes that catch the colors of whatever incoming light and refract it a hundred times over. He can hear the words the angel is too nervous to say. ‘I’ll wait for you. I can wait for you.’

_Don’t think I was ever waiting. Too busy running. Isn’t that what Armageddon is? Hurry up and wait?_

The thought of disappointing Aziraphale twice in the same evening is too much to bear.

_What if it isn’t what I thought it would be? What if it doesn’t work out? What if this was a lie and a promise I sold myself to keep going when there was no reasonable reason to hope against hope the apocalypse could be averted? What if I don’t really feel this thing? What if I lost it? What if I never had it?_

_What if it’s better than I hoped?_

He’s suddenly aware of his nails digging crescents into Aziraphale’s skin, the taste of salt at the corner of his mouth, and a dozen syllables try to fall from his mouth in the space of two.

“Sorry dear?”

“Said _I’m scared!”_ The facsimile of a heart pounds in the empty cavern of his chest.

“Oh _Crowley,_ my joy, my soul, my heart, my everything,” Aziraphale takes one of his hands and rests it even more gently against Crowley’s cheek. His eyes so understanding it _hurts_ straight through his sternum to his spine, a spear made from mistletoe, “I am too.”

The hand clenching the door frame trembles. “Does it threaten to shake you apart? Choke you like a parasitic weed? Destroy what you-destroy-”

“Hush,” Aziraphale runs a thumb along that border wall of bones that define Crowley’s cheek and eye socket. “Be scared with me. That’s enough for right now. Then someday we can stop taking turns at being brave, and be brave together.”

Crowley flicks his eyes up again.

“Y’know it’s fake right?” He lets out something like a chuckle, even though his prophetic soul is full of dread. “Probably doesn’t count.”

“You don’t have to,” Aziraphale says with his eyes trained on Crowley’s lips as they have been for some twenty centuries. Maybe more.

“It’s a stupid tradition,” _not safe, no speed, no courage._ “We’re not even human.”

“It is a silly tradition,” Aziraphale agrees calmly, before his voice colors with longing. “I know it’s for humans, but sometimes it’s nice-” 

Without meaning to, without deciding to, Crowley grabs the angel by the lapels and pulls him in for a ferocious, not-at-all traditional mistletoe kiss. He’s never had the pleasure, but Crowley is fairly certain they are not supposed to be open-mouthed, desperate things that taste of twelve thousand years of combined fear and adrenaline and hypervigilance. He’s reasonably sure that they aren’t supposed to soften and melt into sweet, languid, heated things, then grow desperate again with something far more difficult to label than fear. He’s almost positive that one’s kissing partner isn’t supposed to try to prove something and ruin the other by drawing their lips between his teeth.

He absolutely _knows_ that legs aren’t meant to be involved and thread between each other’s thighs and press up against any Efforts one’s hereditary enemy may or may not be sporting. And yet…

It’s a stupid tradition.

 _It’s nice,_ the truth buzzes, electric and bright between their lips.


	2. Be Not Afraid

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The demon’s voice grew soft. Soft as an offer made to share his flat at a bus stop. “I made them, you know."
> 
> He did not know. Something ached and cracked along his ribs. A spiderweb of fault lines traced along his interior. _You never told me._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a mild warning for injury/blood in this chapter alongside some.... ethereal weirdness. And some very mild power dynamic/sub-dom stuff during the sex. Or attempted power dynamics might be a better term for it, as they're uh, not experienced with these things. It'll all work out though I promise.

Since his previous decorations had gone over rather like a lead balloon (at first), Aziraphale was determined to make things up to Crowley.

He knew, of course, of the other’s love of astronomy and the cosmos. After all, the demon had tried to get him to give up on Earth and go off to Alpha Centauri _twice_. He’d known of Crowley’s associations with Ptolomey, Yaqub ibn Tariq, Ma Tize, Ibn Yunnus, Jamal ad-Din, Tycho Brahe, Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo, and countless others. From Mali, to China, to Persia, to Mayan city-states, wherever humans looked at the sky or built monuments to chart the passing of the stars, Crowley always made his way there. Which amounted to… everywhere.

He knew that Crowley took long drives in the Bentley to find dark skies unpolluted by the clever lights of civilization. Driving with headlights off where no roads existed. (He wondered, if Crowley remembered admitting that to him, the demon had been so, so drunk at the time.)

And then there was that night in Crowley’s flat. Scattered pages of various nebulae and planets. Satellites and far-flung comets. The demon had waved them away, pages tucking neatly back into the book before vanishing altogether.

There had been more kissing, since that night with the mistletoe, though Aziraphale put that particular decoration away. (He _hated_ that stricken, sickened look on the other’s face when he’d seen it.) They had even gone to _Hamlet on Ice_ , which Crowley tolerated with more grace than Aziraphale expected—though that might have been because the demon had the cold to complain about instead. He had helped keep Crowley warm. And drunk.

Still, Aziraphale wanted to _do_ something for Crowley. To _give_ him something. Something to help them both with this… new chapter they were embarking on. If they had something to _fix_ it to, like The Arrangement, perhaps it would be easier. Aziraphale had always done better with concrete things anyway. Whether it was a sword, an oyster, a contract, a medal, a play, a bag of books, or a thermos.

Aziraphale was still afraid, but he could sense that Crowley’s fears outweighed his own. It was his turn to be the strong one, the brave one.

It was his turn to push their limits, while respecting Crowley’s speed.

Aziraphale didn’t mind going slow, but he did hope things would become easier sooner rather than later. He _liked_ kissing Crowley, after imagining it for far longer than he would ever admit out loud. Working up the courage to do so every time he wanted to was a bit tiring, however. He kept _telling_ himself that Heaven had never cared about him, and now they _especially and particularly_ didn’t care about him. They wouldn’t care if he was locking lips or swapping saliva with Satan himself at this point.

So he plotted, and a tiny, selfish part of him hoped that the gesture might earn him some easy kisses that neither of them would need to screw their courage to the sticking-place for.

At first, he considered enacting his plan in Crowley’s flat, but then he dismissed the idea. He didn’t want to overstep while attempting to apologize. (And frankly, he had sixty centuries worth of minor to major offenses to make up for in addition to the latest one, no need to compound the issue.)

This really left the bookshop as the only viable option, except there was no _room_ to do what he wanted to do. Too many shelves or just too much… detritus.

It took Aziraphale an embarrassing day and a half before he realized he could just miracle himself a new room. (To be fair, he was still used to archangels breathing down his neck when it came to certain types of miracles. The kind Heaven did not view as useful.)

So he miracled up the perfect room at the top of his bookshop. An attic that had previously not existed, domed and a little less cluttered than the rest of the shop downstairs, but still _comfortable_. Shelves along the walls, filled with sentimental little books and baubles. Most of them real, tangible things not crafted by miracles. Things he’d kept over the long years, too afraid to give to their intended recipient. Letterboxes and a writing desk—the letters long ago burned and unsent. A chair, wingbacked and overstuffed, and a cozy sofa just in case… two human-shaped beings might want to… snuggle. If they were feeling brave enough.

Twenty windows cut down through that ceiling, angled in perfect examples of Pythagoras’s theorum. Aziraphale was pleased that night when he saw the stars through them, perfect and bright against the clear black sky. Nestled beside a window was an antique telescope paired with a mechanically unsophisticated, but artistically adorned alidade, and a sextant. Crowley would probably scoff and summon up some awful, modern thing that talked to his mobile, but the disparaged relics would no doubt make their way to the flat.

Creating the space and furnishing it was easy enough. The really difficult part came next. The most difficult task, out of all of this, was cutting his time with Crowley short. He actually turned the demon down for dinner on a Friday night. The dismay, this time, was at least short-lived. Replaced by suspicion. (Aziraphale thought he sensed just a little pride alongside that piercing stare.)

Research consumed his days. Tedious measurements that nearly drove him to tears (and did drive him to drink) whenever he hit hours twelve and thirteen. Why did humans have to make everything so _complicated?_ Why couldn’t they just _look_ at things and translate the universal, underlying, cosmic truth of the all-binding, almighty Song of Creation into Ennochian and music like _sensible_ creatures?

Still, hard work, persistence, and two dozen trips to Argos (and one rather desperate one to Harrod’s) paid off. There were still several days until the solstice. It didn’t seem _right_ to celebrate Christmas in the fashion that mortals did, exactly, having known the gent. He’d also been around to bear witness to Saturnalia and Yule cannibalized and subsumed into a celebration that had nothing to do with when Christ was _actually_ born and entirely to do with political decisions.

But, rather like mistletoe, it was a nice thing to pretend what it would be like if such traditions applied to them.

So Aziraphale cashed in his raincheque, and went to dinner with Crowley the very next evening. Not the Ritz, but a Vietnamese place that had just passed down to the third generation and with hu tieu to discorporate for.

Aziraphale was frustrated, but not surprised, to discover that it took a modicum of courage to invite Crowley in for drinks after. _Be brave. You’re the brave one. You are the Angel of the Eastern Gate. You can do this for him. You told all of Heaven to sod off for… for Something’s sake!_

Aziraphale had unearthed several bottles of Viognier and Chenin Blanc, all of them oaked, the deepest shades of gold. Crowley unearthed an old game of theirs. Ripping off the labels and then seeing if they could match the bottle to the vintage. Seeing if they could really pick out notes of vanilla or persimmons or honeysuckle, or if it was all a crock. Or if they just got too drunk to care.

Three bottles in, the angel summoned a Chardonnay to enter the mix, and then a bottle of mead, just sloshed enough to realize he was looking for a bottle whose contents matched the color of his companion’s eyes.

“Blackcurrant,” Aziraphale nodded sagely, taking another sip and letting it swirl over his tongue.

“Pff, you’re barking! Wasn’t even on any of the labels!”

“...Honeydew?”

“Could be,” the demon glanced at the bottom of his glass, then reached over for the mead. It was a lovely, blushing gold, laced with hibiscus and strawberry.

“Crowley,” if they started mixing liquors, the night was going to go how it always would, and quickly. That seemed much more frightening than doing something different, something _new_.

“Mm?” The angel was quite certain behind the sunglasses Crowley was focusing his gaze on the mead, using both hands and all of his attention to direct his pour.

“D’you mind if, if we take this upstairs?”

There was a beat, a delay while the other man-shaped being in the room processed this information. Then he looked up, bottle veering off course, spilling all over the table.

“Come again?” The bottle glugged noisily, only the thinnest stream reaching its intended vessel.

“I just, there’s something I wanted to show you.” His cheeks burned, and he hoped the flush of alcohol disguised it. His heart decided to take up residence at the base of his throat.

The mead flowed for three seconds more before Crowley righted the bottle with an _Oh shit!_ Aziraphale hastily miracled the mess away.

“When you say upstairs, you mean, what, the balcony?” Aziraphale shook his head. “The _flat?_ ” Crowley’s voice broke a little as he asked the second question. Aziraphale shook his head again and a beautiful, adorable little crinkle wedged itself in the center of the demon’s forehead. “The _roof?”_

Aziraphale couldn’t help but grin, barely smothering a chuckle into his wine glass. “It’s, um, it’s new. Think you can get up the stairs?” He couldn’t track the precise movement of Crowley’s eyes, but he could see his head lift to follow the rise of the spiral, iron-wrought staircase. A staircase that went up much farther than it used to. He was a little too fascinated by the unspoken words Crowley mouthed in confusion.

Aziraphale steadied himself with a hand against the miraculously dry table as he got to his feet. The root swayed, and he shook his head until the dizziness left him and he only had a mild buzz. _Be brave, be brave, be brave Aziraphale!_ He grabbed a bottle of… well he wasn’t sure which one was which anymore. He hoped for a Chenin Blanc.

This was nothing compared to The Arrangement. To sneaking around for thousands of years. To avoiding the surveillance of archangels and dukes for the chance to simply _talk_ to Crowley. To averting the Apocalypse and defying Heaven! Going up a flight of stairs should’ve been the easiest thing in the world.

Placing his hand on the railing felt like the hardest thing in the world. Planting the sole of an Oxford on that first stair was the hardest thing in the world. Straightening his knee was the hardest thing in the world.

Aziraphale paused to look back at Crowley, still perched on the edge of the settee. It felt like his heart was trying to batter its way through his throat. “Coming?” Oh how he wished his voice hadn’t wavered! Hadn’t cracked. _Come on Aziraphale! Buck up! You’re better than that! Lean mean fighting machine, and all that. You_ must _be braver than this._

Crowley got to his feet slowly. Like an ice cube melting in the opposite direction of gravity. _Always, always going against ineffable, intrinsic forces. See? Be brave, like Crowley._ Aziraphale snuck a sip of wine as the serpent staggered over towards the stairs.

“Do you need to sober up?”

“Did,” Crowley waved a hand, as if banishing a pesky moth. “‘S just my walk. You know that.”

He did know that. His eyes lingered on Crowley’s thighs, the scandalous ankles concealed by his boots.

The next steps weren’t the hardest thing in the world, but his feet were still heavy. Doubt gnawed at him. The pound of his pulse in his throat drowned everything else out. He couldn’t hear Crowley’s footfalls behind him. Is this what it was like to be Orpheus? Alone in the belly of the world with nothing but faith and an endless ascension? _Don’t look back, just move forward_. _Just climb up, it’ll be fine. He’ll follow. Lead on._

There was a trapdoor at the top of the stairwell that was absolutely not in accordance with modern building code, yet should a city inspector ever check all would be miraculously in order. The angel opened it up and pushed upwards, finishing the climb up the stairwell, into the new space above. _Suppose Orpheus ended his journey in reverse. Went up into light from the dark below, not light below to dark above._ Aziraphale stood in quiet, private agony. It was barely more than half a heartbeat, but it felt like an eternity before he saw Crowley’s copper head rising through the floor.

Aziraphale reached down and helped Crowley with the last few steps, half-forgetting on purpose that he knew Crowley could see in the dark. Then he remembered that fact. _Oh, this must seem foolish._

“Angel? What’s all this?”

Aziraphale snapped, and thousands and thousands of fairy lights burst on, suspended in the air. Mostly white and gold, throwing silver and gold halos of light around the room. Some of them twinkled, some of them pulsed, some held steady, others burned low as if struggling to stay lit, threatening to extinguish. A few fancier lights threw off patterned shadows. There were a few blue and red lights twinkling among the teeming masses. A handful of green and orange. There was an absolutely huge mess in the center, with arms of lights spiraling outward, around chest height. (Aziraphale had finally given in and decided to miracle everything into position after five hours of trying to pin all the wires in place the human way.) There were even tiny pin heads, painted delicately—like grains of rice—for planets that humans had charted out and discovered. He set the bottle on a shelf and twisted his ring, worrying at the solder joint where he’d patched one of the wings, eight decades ago.

He could see the lights reflected perfectly against Crowley’s glasses, where he stood. Pinpricks of gold and silver. The room was a little brighter than twilight now. The walls glowed a soft gold, almost like candlelight of old.

“Do you like it?” Aziraphale finally asked, anxiously, after his dearest friend was silent for far too long.

“Is this… you… angel.. Did you model the galaxy for me?” The demon’s voice was quiet, full of emotion. A suspiciously wet-sounding emotion. Aziraphale felt a bit of relief mixed with embarrassment as he nodded. It seemed like such an over the top gesture now! Such a _fuss!_ Did they _need_ fuss? Maybe all they needed were quiet, little things. Like a bag of books. Maybe it was too much, the mistletoe had been too much, after all. _Oh_ , _Aziraphale, you’ve got to stop-_

“Well done,” there was _pride_ there. Admiration. Approval. Aziraphale felt himself flush, felt his body gather gooseflesh and he felt himself get slightly less sober. _Oh God, why are you so thirsty for a kind word? Get ahold of yourself. You did this for him._ He reached blindly and took a hit from the bottle, before speaking.

“I studied quite a lot, you know. All the measurements humans have made… All their pictures and calculations. I-I’m glad you like it.” The bottom of Crowley’s sunglasses glowed as he approached one of the arms. Silver rims catching some of the ambient colors. Aziraphale searched for the shelf and placed the Viogner back, unable to look away from Crowley.

The demon’s voice grew soft. Soft as an offer made to share his flat at a bus stop. “I made them, you know."

He did not know. Something ached and cracked along his ribs. A spiderweb of fault lines traced along his interior. _You never told me._

There was a wistful little half smile on Crowley's face. He reached up and let a tiny, incandescent light bulb hover at one fingertip. While there was the usual red-orange glow of light through flesh and blood that suffused through his fingertip, the center of it blazed gold. A sun in perfect, blinding miniature. "Was a fair hand at it." The fairy light he left behind had turned pale blue.

"All of them?" (He didn't mean to echo a conversation by a boat before a flood.) There was awe and wonder in his voice. He felt humbled, and he thought perhaps he saw a fragment of Crowley's former Divinity as the demon reached out and nudged a few ‘stars’ ever so slightly as he must have once done. The barest sliver of his once-holy nature unrefracted by his prismatic, broken glass demonic aura. More beautiful for it. Fragmented yet uncowed. Thriving in the middle of slices of black and purple glass, darker than twilight. Amid fractured shards and solder edges, like the remains of a stained glass window. Aziraphale’s vision blurred, and he hastily wiped the gathering tears away while Crowley was busy looking at the heart of the galaxy.

"Did I make all the stars? No, of course not," He lapsed into a silence, a stillness, long enough that Aziraphale could hear the unspoken word hanging there. A thought that lingered, incomplete and heavy on a forked tongue.

“But?”

“But I can see the whole universe in my head, angel. All of it. Every star, every black hole, every mote of cosmic dust.” Crowley paced around the room, eyes scanning over the placement of the lights.

"That's so much," Aziraphale breathed, stunned again. As if he were in the presence of The Almighty Herself. (And it struck the angel, distantly, that the Metatron had not inspired any feeling at all.)

"Yeah," Crowley sounded oddly miserable in his agreement. Not proud at all.

 _That's why you have it. Imagination. Imagination like no other supernatural being has. Oh you must have been so special and beloved to Her._ He pressed his hands to his chest, an ache in the space where his heart had vacated in favor of his throat. How could he ever _hope_ to love Crowley more than that? For just a moment the angel felt like an LED light bulb masquerading as a star.

"But that's _amazing,_ " Aziraphale couldn’t help gushing; his insides turned to treacle.

"Is it?" Crowley still sounded melancholy. Aziraphale wished he knew what he did wrong, what he was _doing_ wrong.

"But my dear-"

“Don’t you _get_ it, Aziraphale?” Crowley tore his glasses from his face and, for a third time, the angel was humbled by the grace of a demon. “She shared _so much_ of Her plan with me, maybe more than anyone else, and it wasn’t enough! I still don’t understand _anything!_ I had- _have_ more questions than answers. It wasn’t enough to keep me from falling!”

 _Oh._ He had to swallow his broken heart down in two pieces, two labored peristalses. The dull thudding of his heart halves reverberated in his stomach. (The human heart wasn’t meant to wander like this.)

“...I still think it’s amazing,” he finally said quietly, stupidly. He fiddled with his ring again, gold wings and solder band pressing against the pad of his thumb. Aziraphale looked at the floor, and he knew his next words would be disappointing. “I wish I had answers for you, about your fall, and why there’s suffering and why it’s allowed to happen. I don’t know-”

“Oh bugger _off!_ ” The angel jerked his head up, and he pulled his ring slightly out of place in his surprise. A red imprint overlaid with gold. Crowley strode through the Sagittarius and Orion arms of the galaxy which obligingly reformed behind him. Crowley grabbed the sides of his head, levying his golden, glowing eyes into his. More dazzling than ever, lit up by the mock galaxy. “ _I’m_ the only one who gets to have existential crises about my fall, got it? You’ve got nothing to do with it. That’s between me and Her. And some people downstairs and a couple archangels upstairs.”

Aziraphale didn’t quite know how to feel, but he wasn’t afraid in this precise moment. “Are you… are you having a tantrum because I felt-”

“Tread carefully, angel,” Crowley hissed the words low. The barest tremor of anger lurked there, anticipating certain words that he couldn’t, wouldn’t abide. _A foolish thought, to say a sorry sight._

“...You didn’t deserve it,” Aziraphale finally settled on, instead of what he was going to say. Crowley’s eyes widened, and he glanced up, a hand slapping over Aziraphale’s mouth. _Should have gone with ‘I felt sorry for you,’ I guess._

“Are you _insane?”_

Aziraphale used the opportunity to kiss Crowley’s palm, and the demon made a pretty little sound, though he pulled his hand back as though scalded.

“I’ve done far worse. I think we’re well past the fear of a bit of idle heresy, wouldn’t you say?”

“I would _not_ say,” Crowley huffed, crossing his arms. _You would, if you knew. I’m Will’s treasonous equivocator. Turns out it isn’t so hard to lie to Heaven after all, if they can’t imagine that such a thing is possible._

“You said yourself that you didn’t understand,” Aziraphale countered calmly. “That you don’t know her plans. Maybe _this_ is all part of the divine plan too.” (He absolutely meant to mirror a conversation they’d had eleven years ago.)

Crowley glared at him, and he sucked at his teeth silently. Sulkily.

Aziraphale glanced down at his hands, and fiddled with his ring again, before daring to look up at Crowley through pale eyelashes. “I know you don’t think much of ineffability, but I’ve been wondering, thinking… since Armageddon, maybe it’s the point _not_ to understand.”

Crowley’s brow crinkled, that furrow appearing above the bridge of his nose again, and Aziraphale wanted to kiss it. (A small piece of him wanted to nibble at it, to slide his tongue into that furrow, but the angel was fairly certain that wasn’t considered proper behavior, even among couples.)

“I just mean,” he twisted the ring, and the repair felt brittle. “Maybe trying to muddle along and figure things out, and try to do the best we can is what existence was _meant_ to be about. All these tests. Trying to figure out what’s right and best. That struggle. Maybe there isn’t a finish line at all, we’re just supposed to keep going. Keep getting better. Otherwise… if we figured it out, then we’d stop trying.”

He shifted in place, worrying his ring, avoiding that awestruck look. They’re thoughts he’s had much longer than he’d dare admit. Heaven never would have approved of such an outlook. Just like they hadn’t accepted his ideas that humanity making _choices_ was all part of the point.

“How?” Crowley’s voice was a mistletoebird with a dozen broken wings. A dash of red at his throat as he stumbled over his words, “How can I…?” Aziraphale gasped, and the solder finally gave way under his fingers. His knees nearly went weak with the force of Crowley’s love. “How do you understand better than anyone…?”

Aziraphale stepped forward, the hardest step in the world. He pulled the broken ring off his little finger, held it tight in his fist. An imprint of pink from a stamp of gold grew on his palm. “Tell me… tell me…” The silence hung between them, heavy with the unspoken thought. Suspended like the makeshift stars Aziraphale had pulled down from the heavens, little witnesses of silver and gold and a smattering of other colors. _Tell me that you love me. Be brave. I thought I could be brave, but I’m still so scared._ “Tell me which stars you made. Show me.” _Show me how much you love me again_. _Let me show you how much I love you. Let me shower you in all the love that you deserve, whether you believe it or not. Whether we say it or not. I’ll still feel it, let that be enough, for now. Let me be brave enough, for that._

Crowley slowly uncoiled and let his shoulders relax. He hesitated, then reached between them. Linked their arms like they were promenading through the park, through the parlor downstairs, and walked them through the different arms of the galaxy. Occasionally making tiny adjustments or corrections as they went. Naming stars he’d worked on as they passed by.

“Alpha Centauri,” Crowley reached up and let each of the bulbs for the two main stars rest on a fingertip. “Look at that, you even included Proxima,” the demon drew his other arm out from Aziraphale’s grasp. (There was, the barest reluctance to let him go, the briefest half-second the demon had to pull before Aziraphale loosened his arms. So scant a moment it was nothing on the cosmic scale of their lifetime, yet it felt so heavy. So long.)

It only took a nudge, the barest demonic miracle and Crowley set the whole thing rotating, all the stars orbiting each other and around the center of the galaxy. The bulbs parted around them and reformed in their proper places as they spun in orbit. Like a sea that had been parted long ago. Aziraphale watched Alpha Centauri A and B. Rigil Kentaurus and Toliman. The two stars circling each other. Proxima Centauri, a tiny red light, circling them both.

“They look like one star, from Earth,” Crowley said, as their closest cosmic neighbor drifted further away. Aziraphale could still see the silver and gold pinpricks of light reflected in Crowley’s eyes. A shifting river of stars. If he looked hard enough, close enough. “Always liked binary stars the best.”

“Did you?” Aziraphale smiled, and he wondered how Crowley could have ever left the cosmos. How the stars didn’t love him so much that they all followed him wherever he went.

“Yeah,” his voice was distant again. Not the broken bird thing, but distant. (A long ago thing, Aziraphale realized. A star-ghost thing that had crossed time and distance and died long before he’d witnessed it.) “There’s so much,” he gestured with long, flummoxed fingers, “ _space_ out there. ‘S lonely.”

_Oh._

Aziraphale’s breath caught in his chest. He might never choose to breathe again. His heart might never beat again, broken into as many pieces as there were stars in the galaxy. In the universe.

All those cracks along his ribs crumbled, and he couldn’t contain his love in his imperfect vessel. It had tried valiantly for centuries, but his cup had finally run over. Cracked through. Love leaking out from every part of him. There was neither fear nor bravery as he stepped forward, placing a hand against Crowley’s chest. A gold, broken ring pressed between them. It bit into his palm. His voice was a tiny, flickering tea light in the presence of a red hypergiant.

“Was it lonely? When you made the stars?”

Crowley let his fingertips trace up the edge of Aziraphale’s hand, carefully meeting his gaze. As if he were aware of his own gravity. The pull he had on his angel. Crowley pressed his hand against Aziraphale’s. Gold bit deeper into a silver palm. The weight of the whole universe hung off his next words. “You know.”

He did know.

He could _see_ it. Crowley alone among the cosmos, in the spaces between stars. With only questions for company, and a fragment of a plan too big to comprehend. The madness of it. The eons of isolation. _Oh, I’m so sorry, my love._ _I’m sorry She loved you so much, too much. That She asked that much of you. It was too much, wasn’t it? And not enough. All those empty spaces that She gave you. Not enough love to fill those voids. The unknown. How could anyone have endured that?_

It wasn’t _fair!_ Aziraphale felt his eyes burn again. Silver and gold blurred his vision, light catching and refracting on his tears. Crowley’s hand tightened its grip on his.

Aziraphale blazed with a sudden determination. His mind went silver-white with righteousness. He _knew_. He _knew_ what gift to give Crowley now. Something better than a mocked-up galaxy. Light blazed beneath his palm, and the foundation of Creation trembled as he spoke. 

_“You will not be lonely.”_ He commanded— _demanded—_ reality to obey him, blind with purpose.

The holy thing inside his vessel shifted, and Crowley’s eyes were wide, the pupil all but gone, borderless amber. The room was filled with blinding, glorious light. Something beyond silver and gold.

“Angel?” It wasn’t a pet name, wasn’t a slur. It was a terrifying truth.

 _“Be not afraid!”_ It had been a long time since Aziraphale had uttered those words.

They’d never worked.

“What’re you-?”

It was nothing, to carve off a piece of himself. Of his true self, his holy essence. It didn’t hurt. The gold beneath his palm melted, pooling like quicksilver against his skin. It formed a pattern, and he pressed, through the broken-glass prismatic edges. Into the holy thing still left inside of Crowley. The only safe place to put this gift. The only shelf it could rest on. (This was nothing like trading faces, trading forms.) He shaped the gold. It wasn’t a chalice or an ark, but it was a container of sorts, and Aziraphale poured that holy bit of himself into gold before sealing it away. (Safe, separate.) The piece that had always belonged to someone else. Now it was home, where it belonged. (Nestled like a mistletoebird.)

The light faded, and Aziraphale’s vision pulled back to the mundane. The room was lit only by LEDs and incandescent bulbs that were so mean and meager, yet hurt his retinas. _Stars, hide your fires_ , the angel squeezed his eyes shut before opening them again. He looked down at his hand, where there used to be a ring of gold pressed beneath his palm.

Crowley’s chest was bare, and there was a golden pattern emblazoned there, underneath Aziraphale’s palm. A sigil of shining gold, reflecting white and blue fairy lights.

A name. A promise. A seal.

Aziraphale drew his hand back, numb all over. _Oh God, what did I do? What did I do!? What came over me?_

“Angel… what did you _do?_ ” There was fear there, in those eyes, and _Oh God_ , Aziraphale wished he didn’t _exist._ He shook his head faintly. _I don’t know. I think it might be something bad. Please don’t let this be bad. Tell me I didn't do the wrong thing. I'm an angel, I can't do the wrong thing, please. Please. Tell me what’s done can be undone._

His mouth didn’t quite obey him and all that came out instead was, “Dunno.”

Crowley’s hands darted out, one grabbed his wrist and the other ripped back his sleeve and the angel blinked down at his arm.

 _Oh_.

Not afraid _of_ him. _For_ him.

“I wonder how that happened?” Aziraphale said, suddenly dizzy at the sight of his own blood. It seeped over his skin from dozens of lacerations and onto the floorboards into a puddle of red. Silver and gold reflected against its surface. He suddenly found himself sitting on the floor.

Crowley spluttered. “Hk-How-you-how the _fuck_ do you _think_ that happened, you idiot!”

“Don’t be cross please,” Aziraphale said, and Crowley lifted his arm above his heart, kneeling in front of him. Oh good. He’d turned his heartbeat off at some point. Probably for the best if it stayed off. “I gave you a present.”

“I didn’t-you didn’t _have_ to-”

“Wanted to,” Aziraphale said sluggishly, trying to focus enough to start closing up the skin, but it seemed a little difficult. He couldn’t think of cells, only stars.

 _“Fix this,”_ Crowley hissed. Aziraphale could feel each bone in those long fingers squeezed around his wrist, the press of nails against his skin. It sent a strange thrill down through to his Effort which was quite odd and most assuredly inappropriate given the circumstances.

“Righty-o,” Aziraphale smiled a little drunkenly. “Out damn’d spot!” He waved his free hand over the pool of blood and it was gone. The cuts in his skin were sealed with gold. Easier than water to wine. _Blood is thicker than water._ Crowley let out a soft cry and dropped Aziraphale’s hand. After a few moments of intense staring, the demon let out a breath and a shaky hand traced the metallic seal upon his chest.

“You absolute lunatic.”

“You’re welcome,” Aziraphale smiled serenely.

“Y-you’re _welcome!_ He throws his bloody arm into demonic essence, carves himself up, and he says _you’re welcome!!_ ”

Aziraphale reached between them, and pressed his fingers against the back of Crowley’s hand, where it traced along the angel’s true name.

He finally started to have the vaguest idea of what he’d done. He felt a little ill.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. The angel hovered his fingertips over a curve of gold. He felt the faintest echo of holy energy there. Muted. Trapped within the metal there. (Safe. Separate.) _How could I have just…? The audacity! It’s too fast! You idiot! Could there ever be a speed to allow what you just did!?_ He prayed he wouldn't throw up in Crowley's lap. “I should have… I should have _asked._ I can find a way to fix it. To-to remove it, I’ll-”

“No!” Crowley curled in on himself, eyes wide, arm clutched protectively over his chest.

“Oh?” Aziraphale dared to hope. The weight of his unspoken fear hung between them. Heavy like a star. Like a supermassive black hole.

“It’s… you didn’t… it’s not _part_ of me, it’s just _in_ me? Does that make sense?” That beautiful little crinkle appeared between his brows again. “It’d be different, if you’d fused it _to_ _me_. My actual essence, but you didn’t. You didn’t. You didn’t consider the _consequences,_ either, mind you, but you didn’t… I know what you’re thinking, angel, but you didn’t.”

_I didn’t violate you?_

“I didn’t?” His chest was full of too many fragments. Too many pieces. Too much love. “Are you sure?”

“Course I’m sure!” The anger that blazed through Crowley would never be righteous again, but it came close.

Aziraphale shrank just a little, not wholly convinced, “It’s just, you seemed so-”

“That’s because you _hurt_ yourself trying to prove a point! You could have just _handed_ me your little meta-metaphorical Pandora’s Box-thingy. Didn’t have to punch your fist through a window to do it, you great git!” Crowley’s teeth flashed, bared like a knife, the malice directed elsewhere.

“I… I suppose I did get a bit carried away,” he reached for a ring that was no longer there. His hand faltered, but then his fingers found their way to the medal at his waist.

“‘Carried away’? Is that what we’re calling it?”

“Look, I realize I got a bit.. A bit.. _tetchy_ for a moment, but-”

“That’s the understatement of the century,” Crowley snorted.

“Look, it was just… alright so I might have taken the _smallest_ bit of umbrage at your circumstances-”

“Didn’t I _just_ say that you weren’t allowed to have any sort of existential crisis regarding my fall?” There was the barest lift to the corner of Crowley’s mouth, though his eyes were equal parts fond and frustrated.

“Technically, this wasn’t _about_ your fall, my dear boy, and it wasn’t a crisis it was… a correction,” he finished the sentence rather lamely.

“You are… the maddest… most infuriating… most beautiful bloody thing in this entire universe, did you know that?” Crowley’s voice was that broken mistletoebird thing again. That prismatic, fractured, refracted flowerpecker of too many wings and sharp edges. That beautiful fellow of dark plumage with a dash of red at his throat.

Aziraphale reached over with a gold-streaked arm, traced his fingers down Crowley’s cheek before he trailed his hand down the other’s throat, stopping at a clavicle. “Tell me how it feels. I didn’t hurt you, did I?” He raked his teeth across his lips.

The demon shook his head, wonder in those golden eyes. “No… I feel…” He looked above their heads, where the galaxy hung suspended above them. Still spinning. It was a long time before he finally spoke. His voice was the star-ghost thing this time. “Feels like a binary star…” Crowley gestured vaguely at his body. Something like silver glimmered along red eyelashes. “In here,” a tiny comet carved a path down Crowley’s jagged cheek, his Dover-cliff bones. He was still speaking to the heart of the galaxy when he choked out the next words, “‘S _nice.”_

 _Four-letter word_ , his brain stupidly supplied, but his hands were already reaching for Crowley. His calcite cleavage edges. He ran his thumbs along those cheeks and pressed their brows together. Shivered as he finally chose to breathe again and felt Crowley steal that breath with his own inhale. Aziraphale closed his eyes, and kissed Crowley. Courage already screwed.

A pair of arms laced around his shoulders, pulled him down, and Aziraphale bowed to that gravity. He let his legs tangle with Crowley’s, and behind closed lids he could see the shift of light as the galaxy above them slowly spun. He pulled back just long enough so that he could see it there, reflected in those eyes, the slow spiral, the bright silver on gold. Then he was kissing his way down the dashing red at the other’s throat. He hesitated above the first arc of gold. A dizzying, fractal halo. A non-euclidean, infinitely repeating shape projected and tiled onto skin. His signature. The closing of a love letter burned and unsent a thousand thousand times. _Yours. Yours. Yours._

He kissed along the edge of gold, and he felt a clever, star-hewn hand grip his hair. Another gripped his gold-caged wrist. Black-lacquered nails dug into the tender skin beneath the metal, and Aziraphale groaned.

_Already screwed. Just find the sticking place._

“You stupid, _beautiful_ thing,” Crowley’s reverent tone traced over him like a paintbrush. Like a whisper in a chapel. A moan shivered out of him as he felt lips brush against his knuckles. He sealed his lips to Crowley’s throat and fervently painted it with red, leaving a weave of marks, covering it like a canvas. Black plumage. Red throat.

Aziraphale kissed his way down the front of Crowley's chest. He kissed alongside the winding paths of gold. The kintsugi seams along his skin. His history displayed and highlighted in precious metal. Aziraphale had always loved wear and tear and restoration. It was better than the miracle of resurrection. He loved glass pieces and solder joints that made a broken thing whole. The shadows of original text on a palimpsest. He loved seams and creases and tears because all of those things were _real_. They held the weight of _history_ , a well-travelled path along those edges.

Those broken things weren't perfect, and wasn't perfection a terrible expectation to bear? He had solder joints all through him from trying to fit into that mould. Joints he hated, had spent years worrying at until the patches finally gave way, and he couldn’t hold his shape at the end of the world. When he fell apart into his own, imperfect truth.

Aziraphale choked down a broken glass sound at the familiar wave of dissonance loving Crowley had always pushed him towards. Suspended in that impossible place between sides. The fact that he loved Crowley for precisely what he hated in himself. _It's always easier to love those seams and fractures if they're in someone else._ He traced a finger along the edge of his name in wonder. A seam stitched into the demon’s skin. (Safe. Separate.) _Is that why you wouldn’t let me tear it out? Is it easier to love my seams than your own? I can do that for you. I’ll thread you full of love a thousand times over._

For someone so full of angles Crowley had plenty of hollows along his hips and navel, and Aziraphale traced every single valley with his lips. He laved them with kisses, poured love into them like mead. (He felt it poured back twofold from the hands on his neck and shoulder.) Aziraphale painted that expanse of belly red too. _Not by my hand, but my mouth will, rather, your skin incarnadine._ Like his neck. Like it had been once on a wall in Eden. Black scales. Red flesh.

His breath stuttered as his hand made contact with a jean-clad thigh, suddenly aware of a steadily rising panic. Slowly, like a tide. Building pressure against his cracked-ceramic, weak-solder seams. It was the primal fear of all seeing eyes that weren’t his own. The fear of discovery. He tried to push it aside, tamp it down. Aziraphale pulled in a breath and then grabbed the medal at his waist, gold biting into his palm. His thumb traced along a hard edge of a wing. Proof that he’d never mattered. _You didn't earn this. They'd have known that if they'd ever cared. If they'd ever been watching you._

"Angel?"

He'd stopped for too long. He'd let the other notice. "Sorry," he mumbled the apology against an external oblique.

"You alright?" A finger curved along his cheek. The gesture was so unspeakably tender it unravelled his natural impulse to lie. Mendacity to truth. Easier than water to wine.

"...Scared," Aziraphale whimpered, thoroughly thwarted and ashamed.

He heard Crowley swallow with that red, red throat. Heard the sweet, wet resistance of his lips as they parted before he answered, "Same." That voice was all gravel and ceramic pieces. The world's oldest collection of pottery shards.

"I don't _want_ to be scared," Aziraphale whispered hotly. He tried to blot his gathering tears against the gentle hills and valleys of flesh beneath him.

"Same," agreed Crowley with his stained glass, kintsugi voice.

"What do we do?" Aziraphale asked the question for once, utterly miserable without an answer. It was the sort of question that made him understand how one could fall; how an entire existence, one's whole psychological framework could hinge on a single question. His faith had not prepared him for this, hadn’t given him a path forward.

"What do you want to do?" Trust Crowley to answer a question with a question. _Trust Crowley._

"Tell me," Aziraphale started haltingly.

"Tell you?" Crowley prompted one heartbeat later—after a swallow and licking his lips, a hunger laced beneath the words.

"Tell me I'm brave. Help me pretend."

"Didn't you say being scared together was enough?" The tenderest palm curved around his cheek, the other gently tugged on a gold-streaked arm. The angel crawled upwards, settling his weight onto the being that was his foundation, drawing in comfort as he tried to _give_ and _give_.

"You deserve more," Aziraphale dragged the back of his fingers along Crowley's neck. There was a beautiful little hitch to the serpent’s breathing, a minute stutter in that throat. For a moment, Aziraphale blazed with enough want that it drowned out the fear.

He saw that little crinkle—that delectable little furrow—form on the other’s brow again. A tender, unsure hand traced up his arm and came to rest on his other cheek, and _oh_ this must have been why the Almighty invented physical forms. There was nothing in all of Creation to compare to this, to be held by the hands that had a part in making it. _Can you shape me, make me into a star? I think I’d let you, just to see what you’d make of me. Put out this brief candle. Boil away the solder and gold and fuse me back together with plasma. Celestial kintsugi. Wouldn’t that be something?_ Aziraphale whimpered as a pair of thumbs traced over his cheeks. _Yes, shape me, shape me!_

“Is it okay?” That _tenderness_ flayed him. He could feel his skin tighten around the gold in his flesh, almost painful.

“I’d like it to be,” Aziraphale whispered, nudging at Crowley’s mouth with his own, silently asking for permission to kiss him. _I think it will be, if it’s you._

 _“Is it okay?”_ Crowley asked again, the pressure of his hands imperceptibly increasing. The angel wanted nothing more than to be boiled down, to be subject to enough pressure to start the process of nuclear fusion, to be born into something luminous and bright. _If you formed me into a star, would I eventually burn in a supernova? Would you have me produce silver or gold? Would we collide like binary stars at the end of their long dance? I’ll produce whatever elements you wish. I want to see what you make of them, what you turn that matter into next._

“Yes,” Aziraphale whispered, and his gasp of relief was swallowed by a star-hot mouth. He slipped his tongue into that stellar kiln, tangled his fingers into fiery hair. He shuddered against Crowley as he felt the other’s tongue shift and split, dragging along the edges of his own.

 _Not fair_. Aziraphale pulled back with a gasp, a broken-solder sound, “So _good_.” He nuzzled at Crowley’s cheek. Felt the heat of them flare against his skin.

“M’not,” Crowley mumbled, turning his head. A crucial error, since that only made his neck more vulnerable. Aziraphale sealed his mouth just below an ear.

“You are,” the angel breathed. “So sweet, and good and _caring_. So good at _kissing_ , so beautiful-” Crowley let out a strangled noise, and it was the most gorgeous thing Aziraphale had ever heard. He could _feel_ the demon shudder deliciously underneath him, and his mouth suddenly felt dry.

He buried his hands in Proxima red hair, and kissed his partner. He let Crowley deepen the kiss, groaned as that forked tongue pinned his to the roof of his mouth, pushed it aside to sweep every crevice and surface of his mouth. The angel pulled away, a thousand thousand years later, and his beating heart had migrated lower. Pulsing deep in the cradle of his loins.

"H-how'm I supposed to tell you good things, _anything,_ when you do that?" Those endless legs shifted and squirmed; they betrayed Crowley's eagerness. “You absolute _bastard,_ ” the affection that laced the word crystallized like honey along his spine, sweet candy morsels wrapped around nerve and bone.

“Thought I was just enough of a bastard,” he breathed out with a laugh, nervous fingers skating down past the gold-stamped sternum.

“Full bastard,” Crowley proclaimed, his voice languid and low. Full of pride and affection. His hand rested along the curve of Aziraphale’s shoulder, long fingers winding to the nape of his neck. The angel could feel the burn of that palm through his clothes. _Please, yes, melt me down. Hold me in your forge-fire hands. Condense me into something good._ “Brave, barmy, beautiful, magnificent bastard.”

Wasn’t it wondrous and strange, how a kind word could make his skin flush with heat? Those pin and needle pinpricks swept all over his skin, from his scalp down to the soles of his feet. _How many pins can dance on the head of an angel?_ The principality blinked dizzily. He felt a little more emboldened, and he shivered as hot hands slid up the sides of his neck.

“You know I’m telling the truth,” fingers combed through his hair, as if it were more precious than spun gold. Aziraphale looked up and he was caught by wide, reverent eyes, pupils huge and dark. The air trembled with the weight of Crowley’s love, like it was straining to break free, or the other was trying to desperately hold it in. A thumb swept across his lip, “For _Someone’s_ sake, you’re so damn beautiful.” _You’re more beautiful. Prettier. The handsomest. You perfect kintsugi masterpiece. The be-all and the end-all. I’d put you in a museum, if it wouldn’t make you lonely. Not again. Never lonely._ Crowley reached down, and his nails raked nervously along the angel’s arm, over gold patches. He kissed Aziraphale’s wrist, the back of his hand; then flipped it over to kiss his palm and then that tenderest skin layered over the fascia and carpal bones.

The angel reluctantly pulled his hand away, so he could cup Crowley’s jaw and drag his hands along skin as he laid his mouth in a searing path down that lovingly abused jugular. Between each hum and whimper Crowley chanted the word _brave_ like a prayer, and the angel desperately tried to believe him.

Aziraphale kissed his way down and down, over a shaking stomach, towards Crowley’s Effort still trapped inside black denim. Where he saw it beautifully straining to be set free. His mouth hovered at the border where cloth met skin. Where he would travel into lands hitherto unknown. A wire alloy of lead and tin wound tighter and tighter around his guts. _Infirm of purpose, Aziraphale!_ His hands, so steady when they brought books back from the brink, trembled as he traced those designer seams.

“I'm scared,” he wished he wasn’t, but no amount of prayer had fixed that particular flaw over the last six thousand years. Since he’d had a moment of weakness and given a flaming sword away. He could feel those long, luminous fingers as they threaded into his hair. Aziraphale reached for his pinky, lost when his fingertips only met bare skin. His hand skittered, searching for a place to land.

“So brave,” Crowley crooned light years away. “You're _brave.”_

“I'm not,” Aziraphale whimpered, the pad of his thumb slid along the hard edge of the medal chained to his vest. He gripped the talisman hard enough his knuckles turned white. Desperate for any anchor to cling to. Something to banish the horror they had countenanced and averted at doom’s edge. The cracks stretched out along the tarmac. He closed his eyes and shivered as Crowley’s fingers tightened their grip, the gentlest tugging on his scalp. Grounding, but not insisting.

“You are. You are, you are, _you are.”_ Crowley’s words dripped down his spine like baptismal waters. Like holy ash on his brow. “Always yourself, always so brave. It's the bravest thing an angel can do, is to be yourself. So brave, so brave, _so brave._ Be brave for me, _please,_ angel.”

 _Don’t beg. Don't ask._ "Command me," Aziraphale let out a trembling breath. Air pooled across skin as he expelled it from his lungs. He hoped Crowley would know.

He did know.

"Be not afraid."

The world went oddly quiet. Like he was standing underneath a waterfall, like he was underwater. Like they were in space. Every sensation was thrown into sharper relief, but he was not afraid.

Aziraphale closed his eyes and he threaded his thumbs through the loops on Crowley’s jeans. His fingers curled inside the waistband and he pulled. The button easily slipped through the hole; the pull of the zipper slid down and slowly parted the teeth as Aziraphale applied pressure in opposing directions with his thumbs. A moan spilled out of the angel as he split the fly open and saw there was nothing underneath. He raked his teeth across his lips as he slowly revealed more flesh and a thatch of red hair, and the first hint of the shaft Crowley had manifested.

If Crowley was still speaking, Aziraphale couldn’t hear him over the shroud of space silence he’d slipped under. He could see the shudder of the demon’s stomach, the shifting of his hips. A tiny, desperate motion that made the angel yank those jeans halfway down those beguiling, maddening thighs. His hearing returned in time for him to catch a blessedly beautiful hiss as Crowley arched his too-long spine off the floor, his hips canting up as his prick was freed.

“Lovely,” Aziraphale breathed, a thing of broken edges himself, laying himself on his stomach between those mostly-clothed legs. Crowley’s Effort was long and the perfect thickness and, of course, curved slightly to the left. The skin was flushed from dewy pink to Proxima red to eventide purple, and the veins raised along the surface glistened with slick. The very tip of his cock peeked out from a lovely little circle of foreskin. _Cheeky._

He blew a gentle stream of air along that skin to cool it, and, oh, it was so _lovely_ how Crowley squirmed. How one heel dug into Aziraphale’s waist and the other just under his buttock. He gripped one wicked, deadly, glass-edge hipbone and wrapped his other hand reverently around that shaft, pulling down gently to fully expose the head. Wasn’t it wonderful how Crowley’s legs strained against the denim around his thighs as he tried to spread his legs?

“Aziraphale,” Crowley swallowed down around a whimper. _Lord,_ what a divine sound his name was on that tongue. The gold-laced, kintsugi voicebox of his throat. “ _More_ ,” there was the barest tug against his scalp. He heard the silent question there. _Is this okay?_

He laid a kiss to a naked thigh before giving the barest nip to the plushest part of Crowley’s muscles there. _“Command me_ ,” he begged, despite the fact that he had not been especially good at letting the other command. He looked up and met Crowley’s gaze, so that the other would know that he _meant_ it. That tongue was still forked as it slipped over his lips.

He wondered if there was still stardust under Crowley’s palm, if it was being worked into his scalp each time those fingers pulled against his hair.“Hold me down by my hips, trap my legs. Your mouth on my balls.”

Aziraphale moved instantly, hands gripping those angular hips, pressing his weight down on Crowley’s thighs through the length of his arms, mouth kissing and tracking his tongue along the suede-soft skin of his lover’s sac.

 _“Fuck,”_ the serpent sounded breathless, lost. Like he was shocked that he’d gotten exactly what he asked for. He pushed Aziraphale’s head just where he wanted it, along that seam of skin. “Suck,” there was the wet sound of a not-quite human tongue on lips. The sound of fangs raked across flesh. Aziraphale obeyed. He opened his jaw and it was remarkable how much it reminded him of sucking down oysters. Drawing that round bit of flesh into his mouth. He felt Crowley push up against his hands, and he pressed down instinctively. The demon crowed, exultantly, words rushing past his lips in the manner of someone who had imagined _precisely_ such a moment too many times over the last several millennia, “Ohhh, that’s it, _that’s it!_ Don’t let me move!” Aziraphale whimpered as he saw that cock twitch. “Angel, you’re so _strong_. So bloody _strong_. So good, too good for-” Crowley choked on a bit of air as he cut himself off. Like he suddenly realized he’d revealed too much.

“Tell me,” Aziraphale kissed his way closer to the base of the other’s shaft. He wanted to pull Crowley closer, manhandle ( _demonhandle?_ ) him and use that strength. He suspected Crowley would enjoy it, but he wanted to be _told_. “I’m yours,” it was the sort of sweet thing that should have been whispered into a lover’s neck, rather than the juncture of their genitalia (at least the first time), but it was true. It was the golden truth spilled over Crowley’s skin, spelled out in impossible symbols.

“Need your mouth. Now, yesterday, a hundred years ago, always. Deep as you can.”

_Thank Something!_

It felt like finding his purpose, a place to hang in the cosmos as he slipped the head of Crowley’s cock past his lips. Into his waiting mouth. The heat and taste of the other filled his senses, and Aziraphale took him in one fell swoop until his nose was buried in a dash of Proxima red. The mistletoebird thing in Crowley's throat cried out; it echoed off the walls and angled windows. Black nails dragged along his scalp, raking through his hair.

Those snake hips were trapped, but his spine was not, and the rest of Crowley thrashed like an eel on a cutting board. Aziraphale swallowed once, and drew his head back hesitantly, like the start of a question.

“Guh-nngh, yes, yes, angel, _yes_ ,” he used the hand fisted in the angel’s hair to encourage his motions. Aziraphale let Crowley control the speed, still pinning his hips in place. His eyes slid shut. (In another plane of existence all of his eyes save one on each shoulder turned their attention to his beloved.) Behind closed lids he could see the shifting lights as they spun overhead. A thousand thousand stars. Four thousand and four planets cycling through endless sunrises. _Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, I will love you. To the last syllable of recorded time._ He dragged his tongue along the underside of the cock in his mouth with each thrust of his head. The slick, saline taste of skin and arousal better than oysters, better than brioche. He swallowed again, drinking down that tantalizing hint of what was to come. The proof of how badly Crowley wanted this. That his body had prepared itself, wet and leaking, to be welcomed into the angel’s.

A soft chant started, and it sounded light years away. A star-ghost thing that became a broken bird thing. A kintsugi masterpiece. A broken, stained glass window, restored and repaired. A litany of curses woven expertly between words of praise. The weft of blasphemy against the warp of worship.

_Oh fuck, oh fuck, so brave, angel, fuck, fucking God in Heaven, fuck God in Heaven, your gorgeous mouth Aziraphale, shit, fuck, so good, so nice, so fucking fuck!_

Each word seared through Aziraphale down his spine, down his Effort. His cheeks were hot from friction within and his skin burned from without. Aziraphale redoubled his efforts. His head bobbed faster, fingers anchoring themselves to those captive hips for leverage.

_Fuck, fuck, Christ, strong, patient, brave, a saint, fuck, sodding shit, so hot, s’like you were made for me, bloody Hell, the best, the best of them, best in all things, best friend, best l-I, I, fuck!_

Silver spilled down his throat.

Aziraphale swallowed it down, hot and molten. He drank up every shake and shudder that wracked Crowley’s body. That supernova, star-end that spilled more precious matter out into the universe. The tremors of his knuckles pressed against his scalp.

He slowly pulled his mouth off Crowley, who gave the barest, most beautiful little flinch in his oversensitive state. Aziraphale’s cheeks still glowed hot as he realized Crowley was still panting. A flattery the demon didn’t have to indulge in.

“Oh… give me.. Moment and I’ll… I’ll—mmph!” Aziraphale stilled his hands, pulling his fingertips back guiltily from the other’s inner thigh, where he’d been trying to tug those jeans back into place.

“That’s all right my dear,” the angel let out a shaky breath. Hard as he was, his courage had been spent along with Crowley. “Another time, this was… it was,” there wasn’t a word for what it was. He waited a few more moments for Crowley’s breath to even out, and he dragged his fingertips along the demon’s inner thigh to gauge his sensitivity. There was a shiver, but it didn’t look excruciating so Aziraphale helped a more boneless than usual demon pull up his too-tight trousers. Crowley hummed as his Effort was tucked away, and Aziraphale assumed the sound was because of his hands in such an intimate area. Until he crawled up to lay on his back beside Crowley.

“Oh!”

“Yeah,” there was a fidget by his side, and the demon almost sounded… guilty? Chagrined?

Gone were the fairy lights. No more wires, no more pinheads expertly painted. Instead there were hundreds and hundreds of miniature suns and satellites. Comets and black holes all danced their path throughout the Milky Way.

“Oh my,” Aziraphale breathed, dazzled by the multitude of gold and silver lights overhead. The perfect simulacra he’d avoided miracling up in the first place. “How did that happen?”

He felt Crowley shift, and he glanced down as a forehead pressed against his shoulder. The demon mumbled something into his sleeve.

“What was that my dear?”

Crowley pulled back, cheeks burning— _yes,_ of course—Proxima red, “Said, ‘You made me see stars.’”

Aziraphale laughed at that, more than a little pleased, “Did I?”

“Must’ve done,” Crowley scowled and gestured overhead. “How else d’you explain that?”

“Well-”

“Don’t answer that,” the demon cut him off shortly. Crowley settled back down beside him. There was a beat of silence, and Crowley glanced over at Aziraphale sort of slantways. “You sure you don’t want me to? I can if you want me to, you know, ” he gestured rather vaguely in the air. “Because I really don’t mind-” he bit his lip to halt his babbling, once again clearly afraid he’d revealed too much.

“I… appreciate the offer. I’d like that another time, but right now it’s… That's…” Aziraphale felt his throat close up on him. _I know you don’t care for the gloomy ones, but…_ “The patient must minister to himself.” He desperately met Crowley’s gaze, trying to convey to the other that it wasn’t _him_. It wasn’t a rejection, just… he needed _time._ Time to combat that creeping guilt; the Heaven-instilled edict ringing in his ears that this was _wrong_. This was so much _faster_ than either of them had intended, and he didn’t regret it at all because it had been wonderful, but his eyes in the other plane of existence had turned roving again-

“Alright,” Crowley pressed a kiss to his shoulder, gentle and reassuring. Aziraphale let out a breath, and he felt that wonderful floating sensation return and take the edge off his anxiety. The demon was quiet for a few moments, his hands nervous, flighty things that couldn’t seem to land anywhere. Fidgeted with each other before he finally blurted out, “I’m sorry, angel!”

Aziraphale blinked, still somewhat high from the contact-bliss of Crowley’s orgasm and afterglow. “Sorry? Whatever on Earth for?”

“For…” The demon gestured above them. “That. You worked so hard on it. I didn’t mean to, to… upstage you.”

The angel burst out laughing, and he reached between them, until he found one of Crowley’s broken-wing hands and squeezed it so gently, so warmly. “My dear, it’s wonderful. You haven’t made a poor player out of me. I’d hoped… I’d _hoped_ to see what you’d make. It’s perfect.” He pulled Crowley’s hand towards his mouth. Pressed a kiss to the back of his hand and he let a finger curl along that palm in an unspeakably tender motion. 

“Oh,” Crowley went quiet, and he looked up at the stars he’d made. Drifting overhead like an ethereal cloud. Reflections of starlight danced on gold. He laced his fingers together with Aziraphale’s. And the angel noticed, from the corner of his eye, that his other hand absently traced over his chest. Over a gleaming, impulsive message finally sent.

 _This is better than perfect. There is a word for this,_ the realization struck him as he saw Alpha Centauri wheel overhead.

 _It’s nice,_ Aziraphale squeezed Crowley’s hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is the much labored over and much belated prompt for "Silver and Gold" A huge thanks to EpiVet for betaing most of this monster for me! It got way out of control. I think this'll end up being 3-4 prompts total maybe? Anyways, this is me. Teasing out every scrap of romance from Macbeth there is to be had!
> 
> [Here's the tumblr version if you're so inclined to look at it there](https://liquidlyrium.tumblr.com/post/189734975640/be-not-afraid)


	3. Serotiny

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You liked it, doing what you were told,” the demon wets his lips; he hesitates. Tries not to think of the last time he asked and got exactly what he wanted. _It’s too much, too fast. I want you so bad. Burn for you like a forest fire. Like clever fires that squeeze resin from wood. I told you I’d want too much, I’d choke you. The mistletoe in the forest of you. Throw me out, throw me on the fire. It won’t hurt me, maybe it’ll burn the need out of me. No wonder you’re so scared._ “I think I’d like that too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt of _pine_. Author's notes at the end list out some of the references throughout the work.

**[53 AD Some forgotten coastline]**

He regrets putting the needle in his mouth, just like he regrets eating the oysters. The taste of sharp pine and bitter sap sticks to his mouth, clings to all the soft, vulnerable flesh that covers his jaws and house his teeth.

He can still taste living flesh on his tongue, lemon, and the sea. Twelve year since, and the taste of it still coats his throat. Twelve year since that curious meeting and that souvenir has remained on his tongue. A shell in his pocket. The cloying taste of sap and pine overpowers the flavor of oysters. It sticks like the pitch the humans labor over. Pots of heartwood over fires, extracting resin. Others heating resin and mixing it with ground charcoal until it’s ready to apply to wood joints. To ropes. To wounds.

They’re off to Britain, as soon as the boats are ready. A storm forced them to stop for some repairs, but they’ll be off again soon. Providence provided, as there were plenty of pine trees along this stretch of coast. And then when they arrive it will be more pitch and quarries and a fortress built upon the ground. Somewhere to fight the Silures from. Cement and conquest. Stretching the Roman reach further across Britannia. Oppressors now oppressed with travel. (Though not a hair had perished in the storm.)

Crowley makes a better use of his time by fashioning a makeshift drinking skin from some bark. He’s supposed to help the Romans, help the invasion along, but he’s always been quick to indulge in sloth. Something hereditary instructing his demonic nature. If his sloth causes a little additional wrath and mayhem, well that’s fine too.

He’s in no hurry to return to the battlefield. Crowley does have a bit of fondness for Britain though, and he wonders, briefly, if Aziraphale has been yet. _I could show you every fertile inch of the isle. Pluck thee berries and fish for thee. Every marvellous stream and valley. The stones they moved to watch the firmament. The clever drawings they cut through the hills and filled with chalk for Heaven’s eyes and approval. Have you seen them?_ He thinks about the angel more—in odd moments like this. His chest feels curiously hollow. Like a lightning-struck tree, trunk cloven and empty. The taste of brine bleeds against sap. Ah well, probably for the best if they don’t get too companionable. Sides and all. Shame really. The angel is the only other being on Earth he’s ever been able to talk to.

At least that’s what a proper demon would be thinking. (Would a proper demon be experiencing this strange, longing sense of loss?) Instead Crowley’s remembering a dozen years ago with something that is dangerously close to fondness.

A demon can get in a lot of trouble for expressing fondness.

That outing at Petronius’s restaurant had turned into several days of company. Long conversations, countless sesterces spent on ale and wine, and a glimpse at the earthly abode the angel was using at the time.

_Oh, you must let me tempt you._

Crowley smirks and shoves the bitter needle to the corner of his mouth with his tongue. _Must I? Perhaps you’ll let me return the favor._ Yes, he can imagine that perfectly. Tempting the angel with an _oh, come on, Rome will keep, don’t you want to see the very edges of her empire? This brave new world that they say Her son died for and all the people in it? Let me show you this fascinating little tribe, their clever inventions, where they’ve taken iron forging. Oh you'd love their druids too, get a real kick out of them._

Crowley looks up at the sky with a sobering realization, stomach dropping like a stone. _You_ would _love them, wouldn't you? And the island. Angel thing, I suppose. Loving things. Places. People._ At least Aziraphale _seems_ to love Earth and all its inhabitants, in a way very distinct from the rest of the Host. He loves it all so fiercely. Not at all remote. The angel especially loves the transient, material things Heaven and Hell both say don't matter. The little things and the big ones. All creatures great and small.

His imagination stalls a bit. Would the angel hem and haw, or would he easily go along—all enthusiasm and love for humanity? Or would it be remembering their places and a good dousing of holy water?

He plucks the thin green lash from between his lips and takes a sip of some conveniently miracled liquor. Yes, yes he’s heard of that. Heaven’s terrifying new weapon. Inspired by, or perhaps created by, the burgeoning beliefs of the cults celebrating the Christ child. (Though humans have been blessing water for centuries.) That bright young man. Snuffed out by Heaven.

Crowley gazes at the industrious humans again. Their waterproof pitch, and he wonders if he’d be invulnerable if he bathed in the stuff. _So clever. Give me a thousand, thousand years and I’d never think of that. Of harvesting and transforming resin. Where do they come up with these ideas? Same places as their gods?_ One of the cohort finally spies him lounging from the hill below, and Crowley just smiles his bastard smile as the human hikes up towards him, indignant rage radiating off of him in waves. He leans back, ever more indolent, and offers the man some celestial liquor. It’s nowhere near as good as tempting an angel, but it’s something to write home about. _Led a centurion astray from his assigned duty and into sloth._

He drinks with the centurion, but—against his better judgement, if not his better nature—he wishes he were someone else. The only being in the world his imagination can form in his too-drunk languor. A companion shaped like a man only.

**[Present Day - A Soho bookshop]**

He wonders if Aziraphale regrets putting him in his mouth. If the taste of him clings to all those soft, wet places like the roof of the angel’s mouth and the back of his throat. Like oysters. Like pine. Like pitch.

He’s never understood how Aziraphale can eat so much, all the time. How his mouth isn’t constantly bleeding and overflowing with flavor. How it doesn’t drive the angel mad when he can still taste oysters, pine, and forbidden fruit from ages past.

Aziraphale is the only thing he wants to taste anymore.

Crowley checks his watch, and springs to his feet from a comfortable sofa. He’s been waiting for the stars to align. He walks over to a telescope, modern and horribly out of step with the room’s decor. A room that had not existed at the start of winter, now only exists because it is an angel’s pleasure. (The model galaxy has taken residence in a Mayfair flat, alongside an ancient brass telescope.)

The demon fiddles with his phone, adjusting the position of the telescope to view the southern portion of the sky. Outside the skies above London are fixing to pour down stinking pitch, straight out of _The Tempest_ , but the windows here that carve out pieces of the heavens are clear and cloudless.

The observatory is just warm enough that Crowley’s peacoat is draped along the back of the settee. The scarf is still wrapped securely around his neck. His _neck._ Crowley swallows and gently touches his fingertips to the sea of purple there. The wine-dark waves of Homer. His neck is still covered in color, two weeks later. His skin had stayed angry red until yesterday, and Crowley is vaguely aware that it shouldn’t have stayed that way for so long. Part of him wonders if he should let it go, let it heal, but Aziraphale has been so… _skittish._ He can’t help holding onto the evidence of what happened.

Not that he’s exactly lacking for that.

His hand traces lower, three fingertips rest on his chest. Where he can feel the hard surface of gold through the black silk of his shirt.

He’s still not entirely sure what happened, but he _likes_ it. And it _kills_ him that Aziraphale doesn’t. He thought he’d assured the other, he _thinks_ he knows what the problem is.

Aziraphale thinks he's somehow desecrated Crowley's corporation. That he's damaged him. As if he has honor left to violate.

As if the demon doesn't know the true meaning of defilement.

_You think you’re the same as Her? As Hell? That anything you do to me is worse than that? That anything you can possibly do is worse than what I already endured? That I couldn’t shed this skin if I wanted to? That I don’t want whatever you see fit to gift?_

No, that's the part that truly rankles. That Aziraphale doesn't trust him. Doesn’t trust that he knows what he’s talking about. If anything, _Aziraphale_ is the one who was injured. Like the angel punched through his own shop window and shoved his arm through the broken glass to pass Crowley a package in his enthusiasm. His utter and holy devotion.

They still kiss, but the touches of their lips are fleeting, Aziraphale keeps him at arm’s length. As if afraid that Crowley is made of glass, something breakable. Something broken. _Alright, fair, but I’d let you break me. Sounds rather lovely, wouldn’t you say? Snap me apart. Grind me to pieces, to powder. To charcoal. Boil away the turpentine-blood in the resin, mix in the bone-dust, and make pitch. Make tar. Distill this heart pine into something useful. Something clever._

He leans down to look at Monoceros through the eyepiece of his telescope. Through sunglasses. He briefly thinks of Jakob, overshadowed in the short memory of humans by his father in law. This collection of stars has had other names, but he’s fondest of that one. Bittersweet as it is. 

It’s faint to human eyes, but Crowley sees the nebulae and star systems to the south with perfect clarity. This part of the sky is full of binary stars. There’s even a triple star system visible in this corner of the heavens. There’s a black hole as well, dark and terrifying with a blaze of light around it. He used to think he was special, being able to see them, but now humans have captured a picture of one. Clever, clever things. _They only see the tip of the iceberg now. Will they ever be able to see the terrifying whole? Will the power of their collective imagination keep them safe and grounded? Will they someday see the whole thing?_ It hurts, a little, but it’s almost a relief each time the humans unravel another mystery of the cosmos.

He sighs and gives the telescope a loving caress, pulling away from the eyepiece. “Some of my best work right there,” Crowley announces to no one in particular. _Should have pushed harder to give Sol a sister. Dunno why She was always so in love with making solitary, lonely things._

The observatory seems too empty all at once, the spaces where his marrow should live lie vacant. A familiar ache yawns beneath his sternum. He rubs his chest, against a seam of hidden gold, and the feeling of loneliness vanishes, swallowed by the binary star paired with his heart. Subsumed by the well of gravity that hangs there. He feels both more and less hollow—more assured and less worthy.

“Crowley?”

The sound of Oxfords on iron echo through the space, and then the angel’s head emerges from the floor.

“Hullo,” Crowley shoves his hands into his pockets, trying to look cool. Like he isn’t the sort of person (person-shaped thing) who has uncool, philosophical asides in his own brain.

“I was just wondering if you fancied a cuppa? I was about to put the kettle on.” Aziraphale stands by the entrance to the trap door, a little breathless, hands clasped behind his back. Rocks on his feet.

"Sure," something more than his heart pulses within his chest.

"Excellent!" Aziraphale doesn't turn to go downstairs. He starts walking along the edge of the room, hand tracing over shelves. Crowley tracks the angel's motions behind his glasses. Pretends he hasn't noticed the angel is constantly monitoring the perimeter. “What have you been studying tonight, my bird?”

Crowley tries to will his cheeks not to blush. The heat he feels suggests that he’s failed. Aziraphale is killing him with endearments. Mostly _my bird_ , sometimes _my dearest,_ twice _my sweet_ , and—when he wants to utterly embarrass Crowley— _chick._

“Monoceros,” he mumbles, shoulders hiking up beside his ears, hands clinging to the linings of his pockets like anchors. “Can look if you want. ‘S all set up.”

“Oh, the one horned beast!” Aziraphale halts his march and all but glides over to the telescope, leans down to look through the eyepiece.

Crowley nods. “Yeah, the unicorn.”

He’s envious of Aziraphale’s teeth as they scrape across his lower lip. Worrying the flesh. “I guess there were still two unicorns left after the Flood. Funny that I’d never realized that, until now.”

Crowley instantly remembers a boat. The smell of cedar and hundreds of pounds of pitch that cut through rain and hundreds of pounds of animal shit. He wonders if his bones smell like pine, his blood full of turpentine. “If I’d known,” it seems so stupid now. How was he supposed to keep track of all the myriad of ways life could procreate? Never was his responsibility. Lucky he knew the different types of sexual and asexual reproduction at all. How was he supposed to know that unicorns weren’t geitonogamous? Or parthenogenetic? No wonder Aziraphale looked at him like he was a madman decades and decades later, when he asked if the other unicorn had settled somewhere too cold for bees.

“There wasn’t time,” Aziraphale says quietly, still staring at the celestial unicorn thousands of lightyears away. “You were saving something more important.”

The oxygen in his lungs burns away. Pine needles and leaf-litter lungs consumed in a flash.

“What?” He doesn’t know why his palms are sweating.

“You think I didn’t know?”

Crowley feels dizzy. He shakes his head faintly. “I didn’t think you did.”

“Of course I knew, my dearest chick,” he can see the warm crinkle at the corner of Aziraphale’s eyes. He groans in embarrassment; he caves and buries his face in his hands. A second later he remembers that he’s trying to be cool and pulls his hands away. The angel looks up at him, rests his hand on the sleek housing of the scope, and shoots him a smile full of mischief, “I got in trouble for it.”

His stomach drops.

“You _what?”_ His voice cracks.

“I think the term is… I quilted for you?”

“What!?” Crowley repeats the word, this time laced with irritation. He can feel his brows knitting together. Quilting together.

“You know,” Aziraphale mimes throwing a blanket with his hands, “like when I put a throw over you the other night.”

Crowley struggles to think for several moments. To compute and activate the part of his brain that translates Aziraphale’s perpetual, inexplicable difficulty with idioms. “Cover? You mean you covered for me?”

“Yes!” The angel beams proudly, hands clasped behind his back, “I covered for you!”

“But,” Crowley isn’t sure why he’s protesting. Why he feels cracked and broken. Why he feels angry. Why he feels like the foundation of the planet has shifted beneath him. “We weren’t—we didn’t have The Arrangement yet!” There it is.

“So?” Aziraphale frowns, his delight evaporating in the face of Crowley’s refusal to be gracious.

“So!? Ssso? That’s all you can say? _So!?”_ Crowley starts pacing, meandering about the room in agitation. _Could have told me that you had a head start on our non-interference policy. Would have made bargaining for a formal compact easier._

“I don’t understand. Can you please explain to me what has you so distressed?” Aziraphale seems genuinely confused. Genuinely pained.

“What did they do to you?” Crowley snarls, heat burning under his skin like lightning-struck lignin beds. He whirls on his heel to face the angel.

“It doesn’t matter now,” the answer comes in a rush. Too quickly.

“I think that it bloody well _does_ matter,” the demon hisses.

The angel stands stiffly, clearly uncomfortable. His eyes dart around the room, to all the windows he created and the opening to the stairwell. Finally, he answers in a too-tight voice. “It doesn’t affect my corporation, it was a long time ago.”

“What did they _do?”_ Not knowing is suddenly worse than the burden of carrying an ever-changing map of the entire universe in his skull. It’s a petty, manipulative thing, but he reaches up to remove his glasses. He’s willing to exchange a little vulnerability to exploit Aziraphale’s weakness in order to extract the truth. _Stop lying to protect me._ _Sometimes I want to crush the very virtue of compassion that lies within whatever passes for an angel’s beating heart._

Aziraphale searches his face with a worried expression, but he finally nods. “All right,” the angel swallows. It’s such a loud sound. One that’s tied to other memories in this very room. _I know what it sounds like when there’s a cock down your throat. When you swallow around one._ The angel swallows again, sweeps his eyes up and down his form and it feels like those eyelashes are fanning heat through him. Building a flame. _Fuck, fuck, fuck not the time, not the time! Are you doing this on purpose?_ He almost wants to banish his Effort, with the way it’s been behaving. Bloody nuisance. Standing to attention at the slightest provocation. Except that it feels _good_ , and he’s a little exhausted from resisting temptation for centuries. He can’t quite force himself to give up that warm sensation in his blood. Can't let go of the indulgence. _It was easier when I didn’t have the taste of you stuck to my mouth. When I didn’t have you stuck in my chest._ A lie.

Aziraphale has always been stuck in his chest.

“Tell me,” he croaks, trying to banish the maelstrom of conflicting images in his head. Cruel archangels and slick sounds. Holy castigations and reverent praises. He’s burning like a forest fire. It feels like Hell—all anger, lust, and torment rolled up into one raging hurricane.

“It was so very long ago,” Aziraphale whispers, his expression shifting back into worry. He wrings his hands. "Hardly even remember it at all most centuries." Crowley fixes the angel with a hard unblinking look. "It's nothing really. Barely even notice it. It's just a bit of a limp in the old ethereal form."

The blood drains from his face like sap from a tree wound.

"That's possible?" He smells pine and steel and miles of damp. Horses and hired hands. _My dear fellow, they'd check!_

“Evidently,” Aziraphale rubs at his right thigh. “Just a bit of… holy wrath. Caught the wrong end of a heavenly blade.”

Crowley swallows thickly. _That’s how you found out Michael was a stickler. Why you don’t want to get the archangel fucking Gabriel upset with you. I never took you seriously. I didn't think you were speaking from experience._

He feels like a fool.

“They didn’t mean it!” Aziraphale blurts out, unprompted, and Crowley reels back a bit. He feels dizzy.

“They didn’t _mean_ it?”

“It was… It was an accident.” Aziraphale says the words in the manner of someone who has been trying very hard to convince himself of that fact for a good five thousand or so years. It still sounds like a question. A suggestion. Heartbreakingly hopeful.

 _“Accident?”_ The word hisses out like an electrostatic discharge splitting the air, ozone sparking through his teeth. It sounds a lot like the word _fraternizing_ , caustic as pure gin on the tongue. The taste of varnish coats his mouth and smothers the flavor of pine sap and oysters and Aziraphale.

"Whatever you wish to call it,” Aziraphale says, squirming unhappily on the spot. He looks so crestfallen at whatever he sees in Crowley’s face he plunges on, “Well, it’s just, there was some… unpleasantness that had escalated into shouting. Gabriel was quite dissatisfied with my explanation Michael was standing behind me. I knew that, of course, and these were the days where the avenging angel look was still in, and Michael’s always had martial inclinations. I knew there was a blade behind me, and I,” Aziraphale pauses. “What was I doing? I think I was…” The angel takes a few hesitant steps backwards, trying to bolster his recollection. “Yes, just like this. Then I stepped to one side, and well, we must have taken the same side step, in the same direction. Then there was a holy glaive right through the ethereal form. They’d taken custody of my corporation to repair some of the rain damage it had sustained, you see.”

 _Rain damage?_ He can't even repeat the words. _Aren't you tired of making excuses for them?_

“I should have killed them,” the snarl climbs out of his throat like something clawed and ugly.

“Crowley!”

“Should have burned my way out.” He stalks forward in a blind fury and presses a hand to the angel’s hip, even though that isn’t where the wound really lives.

"Oh, I say!"

_He's not ready to hear this. It's too soon, too fast. He’s too tender to want to see them erased from the fabric of reality. Too good for your own good, angel. You didn’t want another war but, Somebody help me, I’d steal her steed and your sword to make sure they never touch you again, angel. I bet she’d get a kick out of it, yeah? A war of one against the host. I’d do it anyway._

There’s something hot and painful gathering in his eyes. The angel looks terribly distraught, and there’s a tightness in his chest that has nothing to do with the gold embossed on his skin. He realizes his hand is still on Aziraphale’s hip as his other fumbles for his sunglasses. _Look at that face… alright. Fine. You win. I won’t tear Heaven out of the sky. Just for you I won’t do it._ The anger is gone quick as it came; his mouth feels like it’s coated in ashes. He needs something else to banish the taste.

Something else to coat his throat.

“You said there was tea?” Crowley tries desperately, staring at Aziraphale’s lips in exactly the manner the angel has stared at his for decades on end. Shielded by polycarbonate.

“There will be,” Aziraphale says with a faint smile. He tries not to clench his hand around the hip still in his grasp—somewhere below miles and miles of supple flesh and well-worn tweed. The angel reaches down between them and brushes his thumb down the back of Crowley’s hand. It feels like lightning coursing through his arm, a trail of fire where their skin touches. Like he’s been divided by Aziraphale’s ancient sword, each part of him flaming distinctly. Crowley rips his hand back from Aziraphale's hip, fingertips tingling with a friction burn, suddenly conscious that it was too much, too much.

_Fuck. I could live off that. Even just one touch like that every twelve years, I could live off that._

He bites the edge of his tongue, fairly certain he could come like that. If Aziraphale asked him.

 _He hasn’t asked_.

His heart takes root in his throat.

_I want him to._

Crowley swallows, and presses a hand to his chest. It feels like gravity just righted, his skin is less tight.

_Haven’t you had years of practice in hundreds of murky dens? Against a thousand opportune places and the strongest suggestions? This is hardly the opportune time, anyway!_

“Crowley?”

He pulls his hand away from his chest, almost guilty. _Didn’t mean to remind you, I swear. Just feels so good. I blessed, bloody four-letter-like this thing you did for me._

“Yeah, right. Sounds good. I’ll just come. On down.”

“I’ll go start the kettle,” Aziraphale finally steps away.

“Gimme a few minutes.” He just manages not to let another stupid slip of the tongue escape his lips. Like _‘I’ll be popping off in a few.’_

“I can bring it back up if you like, if you aren’t done admiring your friend.”

The smile that settles on his lips is something that he still has the instinct to deny. _A demon can get in a lot of trouble, being soft_. “I’m not, ‘s why I’ll follow you downstairs.”

Crowley wants to tear off his skin at the way Aziraphale puffs up and gets all shy and pleased, cheeks coloring with a bashful flush. Seal himself inside a cloven pine tree for twelve winters to recover from it. That happy, coquettish sway and delicate ‘oh!’ _do_ things to his chest that he can't blame on the golden inlay there.

Aziraphale gives him a lingering smile full of fondness at the top of the stairs, and Crowley’s guts smoulder like a pot full of pinewood.

He waits for the angel to disappear through the trapdoor, waits another two minutes before he moves to follow. _Get ahold of yourself._ Crowley grabs his coat off the back of the sofa and forces his legs to cooperate down the winding staircase. Dons his peacoat like he’s trying to box it into submission. His knees knock against the iron spindles on the way down, but he puts some additional swagger on as he comes down off the last steps. Almost too much swagger.

Aziraphale doesn’t see him wildly pitch or his near-acquaintance with the floorboards, bustling at the electric kettle. Crowley slithers through the shelves and into the kitchenette. It occurs to him that he has not thanked Aziraphale. _Wouldn’t be the first time._ “Windows up there are perfect. You really outdid yourself angel,” is what he says. Since he’s genetically—or maybe cosmically—incapable of saying it outright.

He’s almost thrown back by the force of Aziraphale’s beaming smile.

“Oh, I’m so glad to hear it. I’ve been-” he stops short. Aziraphale looks at the demon, as if unsure he should speak.

Crowley tilts his head, “What? You can say it. Whatever it is.”

“I’ve… it’s odd, but I’d been rather… Worried that we might stop seeing each other. Now that the Arrangement is, well, obsolete.” He can tell Aziraphale is chewing at the inside of his cheek. “I just realized it, I think.”

“Oh,” is all Crowley can think to say in response.

“Yes. _'Oh_ ,’” the angel sighs. “Oh _Crowley_ , I used to _miss_ you something awful when you weren’t around. You have no idea!”

The heart that’s rooted in his throat seems to spread its system deeper through his body, down his windpipe, across his ribs, up into his skull. He thinks of a wind-swept pine coast and oysters.

“I have some idea,” he finally manages to croak out.

“I suppose you do.” Aziraphale runs his gaze up and down the serpent before he turns with a quiet exclamation. “Oh! The tea!”

Crowley reaches out for a steaming mug of Assam tea as it’s held out for him a moment later. Out of habit, he first guides his fingertips to avoid colliding with Aziraphale’s. Then he realizes he doesn’t want that at all, but he’s too nervous to try and deliberately cover the other’s hands.

_So stupid, you fucked his mouth, had your hands in his hair, now you’re nervous about an incidental touch?_

His chest locks in place as Aziraphale brushes his fingers along the demon’s. It feels like his muscles lost the ability to transform electrical impulses into the chemical reaction necessary for movement.

Ashes coat his mouth again, and Crowley realizes yes, yes he’s scared. So fucking scared.

It’s exhausting.

He’d be angry if he had enough energy for it. He takes a sip of tea to banish the taste of fear.

_I feel like this is the most we’ve touched since that night. I hate it. Should be needing you less, not more._

“Dreadful weather,” Aziraphale remarks as a crack of thunder splits the air outside and shakes the room, a thousand ceramic keepsakes and cups tinkling in response.

“I like rain,” Crowley says without thinking.

Pale brows crinkle into a pattern far too precious for this reality to contain. “Since when? You hate being cold and damp. And besides...” Aziraphale’s eyes betray him as the Angel of the Eastern Gate glances where the south skies would be.

_Since The Beginning. The first storm. Under your wing. Learned to hate it later. After She invented floods._

“Guess you’re right. Misspoke. Fucking hate rain.”

Crowley throws himself in the general direction of a chair and trusts it to catch him. Milton was a sorry, sad sack of a man, but ‘Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven’ has always been a raw, relatable line, and one that led him to treat every flat surface on Earth like a throne since he heard it.

He can hear the rain as it starts lashing at the windows of Aziraphale’s shop. The only time they experience anything close to a cleaning. They also know better than to leak, however old and unmaintained they look.

“Well, since the weather’s so awful tonight, you really ought to stay over. No sense in driving in these sort of conditions at night,” Aziraphale settles into the dance they can’t quite get out of. Takes a sip of cocoa.

They both know he could drive if he needs to. Some nights he’s needed to. Part of him feels like he needs to tonight.

Crowley sips his tea, undecided. He can taste pine sap. _Someday, will you simply ask me to stay? How much bravery do you think we need between us, for that?_

“Mm,” is all he says.

“If you want to, that is,” Aziraphale suddenly looks down into his mug.

 _Fuck_. “I want to,” his pine-bark voice peels the words from his throat.

“Oh! Wonderful.” Crowley leans in just a little, just to soak up a little more of that radiant, ethereal warmth. _If you’d been part of Hell, we would have taught you how to weaponize that smile. Think I probably managed to do that somehow. Fuck me sideways._ “Shall we set up the chess board? It’s been awhile.”

“Fine, but start a fire. ‘S chilly in here,” the demon spills onto his feet, and goes over to dig out the ancient chess board from under a pile of books. He concentrates on moving the precious stacks of tomes. Trying not to think too hard about being fucked sideways.

He pauses as he sets down the third stack on a miraculously clear surface. On top sits a first edition of Kepler’s _Somnium_ , tattered and well-loved. There’s a cloth bookmark among the pages. With a quick, sideways glance to make sure the angel is occupied, he cracks the book open. It takes a moment to parse the Latin, but he smiles a bit as he realizes the bookmark is set to the summoning and introduction of the daemon of Levania. He closes it quickly, tries to smother the squirming thing inside his chest, and brings the heavy wooden chess board to a table.

Crowley digs out the pieces. Sets aside two pawns, dark and light. Digs out the rook and the elephant. The queen and the vizier. The chieftain and the pikemen. A set composed of foundlings, the tenacious survivors over centuries of service. The vagabonds and misfits.

A fire roars to life in the hearth, and Crowley shrinks back from it. Despite the fact he asked for it. _You weren't thinking. Just like when you said you like rain._ He tries to ignore the cold trickle of sweat running down his neck. Some days are worse than others. _It’s raining outside. Don’t you hear it? No chance this fire will get out of hand._ He focuses on arranging all the pieces. The scrappy, cobbled together kingdoms and armies. Black and white squares neatly quilted together creating balance and order. Since when did he have to focus so hard on breathing? He’s been doing it for over six thousand years, it should be automatic, but it seems like his lungs keep getting stuck.

“Crowley?”

“Yeah?” He feels so light-headed. Stupid body. Stupid lungs. Stupid brain. _You don’t even need to breathe. You just like to. Need a better hobby._

There’s the barest weight of Aziraphale’s fingers on his shoulder, “Are you alright, chick?” The endearment is so soft and tender, Crowley feels like he might come apart. Like all the leftover, dried up Christmas trees in thousands of households across England, shedding needles at the slightest whisper in their direction.

“Yeah,” he blinks behind the sunglasses. He can see Aziraphale sweep those ever-changing, moonstone eyes up and down his face, but the angel doesn’t press him. Not yet. He’s good like that.

Crowley settles into his chair. Hides the pawns behind his back, passes them back and forth. It's a familiar ritual. His breathing comes easier. Aziraphale sits across from him. Crowley keeps the pieces moving until Aziraphale says, "Right."

Crowley reveals a white piece from behind his back. "Amazing how that always happens."

"Practically ineffable," Aziraphale smiles.

"One of these days it'll be different," the demon isn’t sure he believes it, even as he says it.

Aziraphale just smiles and makes his opening move. Crowley makes his, going with his gut instead of using his head. There’s a gleam in the angel’s eye. A calculating, sort-of bastardly gleam that Crowley has come to know well.

After a few turns, the angel’s machinations are laid bare as he simply coos with admiration after Crowley nudges a pawn into place. “Oh! This was well done, my bird.” He can feel a hot flush wash up his neck, all along his scalp. Surely, surely he’ll build up an immunity to this someday? _I have to_ , Crowley thinks wildly. _I’ll die otherwise._ He reaches for his mug, like it might afford him some protection.

It does not.

Just when he thinks he might be safe his hereditary enemy throws out another endearment. Like an assassin with a knife. It has him squirming in his chair and looking for escape.

He blinks and Aziraphale is up two to one. They know each other’s playstyles so well, but it’s still thrilling, still surprising. The angel’s masterful grasp of strategy versus Crowley’s mad, imaginative schemes and far-reaching patterns. The chase, the dance, the _pursuit._

The tiny brushes of their fingers that Crowley hopes is less and less accidental.

“How clever of you, my sweet, what shall I ever do to counter you?” Crowley makes a noise in the back of his throat. His skin feels like cellophane trying to hold lightning. He pulls his spindle-stork legs underneath him, lets out a tight breath from his lungs, avoiding the angel’s gaze.

“Can’t you… be more sarcastic when you do that? Or something? ‘S embarrassing.” There’s too much heat centered at the base of his Effort. A lance of fire spans from the crucible of his pelvic bones to his sternum. He half-expects the gold there to soften and melt.

“Now why would I do that? I mean every word.” He _hates_ that it sounds so sincere. That Aziraphale isn’t taking the piss. He glares across the chessboard, opens his mouth to complain that this is going to fucking _destroy_ him, but-

“Hold up! You’re _cheating,_ ” the demon accuses suddenly, with a delighted grin—interrupting his own thoughts as he realizes that Aziraphale’s queen had made a rather knight-like move from where it had been previously stationed. There’s too much joy in his chest. It shifts and strains against his ribcage, trying to clear it out and make space, like a freshly hatched cuckoo.

“No, my bird. I wouldn’t cheat for the world.” Aziraphale sniffs primly, simply shocked—outraged!—at such an implication.

 _I could live off that smile you’re trying to hide. I could live off tiny brushes of hands and you cheating at our bastard child of fairy chess and Shantranj_ _and lying your face off about it. I could live off of being called my bird and dearest and chick._

He honestly could.

_How is it I still want more?_

He’s used to _yearning_ , the pining, the wishing. The idle thoughts. The far-off fantasies. He’s not used to this raw, visceral wanting. This _thing_ gnawing at his bones that isn’t fear. And sometimes alongside fear. This burning thing that smoulders like an ember among pine needles. Waiting to flashover into a forest fire.

He doesn’t understand how he can want so much, all the time. When all he has to do is taste the air and make his mouth bleed and overflow with the flavor of Aziraphale and his damned cologne.

When Aziraphale has given him so much already.

“Start over? Another game?” He’s two moves away from victory, tying up the score, and they both know it. He palms a pawn and the pikeman, passing them back and forth behind his back.

“You know you can have the white pieces if you want them,” Aziraphale lowers his voice.

Crowley freezes. He flicks his eyes up at Aziraphale. Safe behind his glasses. _Are we only talking about chess pieces?_

“I mean, if you want to go first.”

He drags his teeth across his lips. _I’m eighty-five percent sure he’s just talking about chess pieces. I should be annoyed that you’re somehow the best angel in Heaven and Earth and twice the demon I’ll ever be. Salvation and temptation wrapped up in one._

“Swap?” Aziraphale extends a hand, white chess piece in hand. It’s like having an out of body experience. Like missing a step on a stairwell. Last time he’d heard that word in that voice it had been transmitted through flesh and bone, not through the air. Saw the extended hand from inside that skull.

Crowley studies Aziraphale’s hand, and shakes his head. Rooted back into himself by the gravity in his chest. He has to commend the angel for the temptation, it had been as difficult to resist as ever. “Wouldn’t be any fun otherwise. C’mon. Left or right, one of these days we have to break the streak, yeah?”

Aziraphale picks left. Crowley reveals a white piece. They set the board up again.

“You still have that copy of _The Somnium_?” He tosses his head in the direction of the sidetable where it now rests. Waits to see which opening move Aziraphale will pick.

His pulse quickens as the angel picks a rash one, one that leaves him vulnerable. A suboptimal one. _Oh? What’s this? That’s new._

“I do,” Aziraphale smiles fondly. “One of your favorites, wasn’t it?”

“Only because I’m in it,” Crowley tries to scoff and preen at the same time. “I don’t _do_ books, you know. That’s your thing.”

“And yet you seem to end up in so many of them,” there’s something positively _dreamy_ about Aziraphale’s smile. “I must say though, a demon that travels through space, imparting secrets of astronomy to humans—a little on the nose, don’t you think? Hardly your most inspired appearance.”

“Shut up, _Nike._ ” Aziraphale turns the most charming shade of pink, so Crowley relents. Just a smidge. “I was _drunk_ , and he was so _clever_ , and he could _see_ things.” His chest aches in a peculiar way. Not quite lonely, but something adjacent to it. He moves the elephant.

“When was the last time you went to the moon anyway?” The angel is playing recklessly. What’s his game?

“It was…” Crowley thinks for a moment. Goes through an entire catalogue of history. _Oh._ “Mm. Sometime in the fifties, maybe early sixties?”

“That long ago?” It’s moments like these where he appreciates Aziraphale. Someone who _knows_ and understands. Who asks the right question. _That long ago_ instead of _that recently?_

“Yeah,” he studies the board, narrows his eyes at it. Overlays the image of chalk-filled trenches along the grid. “Pissed off head office. There was a plan. St Patrick's level stuff. I cocked it up," he tries to say the words as though they are ordinary. It comes out strained.

Aziraphale sits up, suddenly quite still. “You never told me this, what plan?”

“Ah.” Crowley turns his head, delicately. “There were… There was a thought, that maybe we ought to… set the stage for the Antichrist’s birth.” He gestures vaguely with his fingers. Like shooing a moth. “We knew we weren’t going to raise him in Jerusalem or Galilee or any of the obvious choices. Britain was a nice little backwater, relatively speaking. Seemed like a perfect sort of spot, so! Big plan. Carve out some influence on God’s green Earth. Make the island so defiled and profane no angel or Heavenly agent could set foot on it.”

“Oh,” Aziraphale wilts, like an ill-fated plant in his flat.

“Yeah,” Crowley half-shrugs. “Obviously that didn’t happen.” He pauses, “It had to do with the Romans and the tribes on the island. It was all supposed to go differently. Tried to blame it on free will, only-”

“That one was yours too,” Aziraphale looks across at him with such soft, pitying eyes. It makes him want to curl up into a ball.

 _"Anyway,_ I needed a minute after that fiasco, so I popped up just to have a look at… y’know. Earth and such.” Maybe humans can’t see it from space unaided, but Crowley remembers the awe of seeing the Earth rise and tracing his eyes over the path of the Great Wall. Their pyramids, their lines in the desert. Their chalk-filled trenches and monoliths.

“Did they hurt you very badly? What did they do to you?” Aziraphale reaches out, then stalls, as if he isn’t sure if he should offer Crowley his hand.

He looks at the hand hanging there. Half-offered, half-retracted. Shifts his jaw before he tips his head to fix Aziraphale with a pointed look. One he trusts to pierce through the glasses. “It doesn’t matter,” it’s meant to be scathing. An indictment. It sounds anything other. Like someone trying to brush something one-thousand nine hundred and sixty-odd years old under the rug.

“I rather think it does,” Aziraphale's voice is deceptively soft. Like a down pillow wrapped around a steel blade.

"Well, they didn't send me a rude note," Crowley starts.

"And whatever they did wasn't an accident," Aziraphale finishes; he sounds curiously flat.

"No," Crowley agrees cautiously.

Aziraphale's face does something complicated. Something the demon doesn't like.

"Hey," Crowley leans over and then jumps a little as he feels strong fingers close around his.

Aziraphale looks down at their connected hands, equally startled. "Oh! I'm sorry-"

He tries to pull his hand away but Crowley just squeezes. Just to hold him a moment longer, because this is important. Just because he needs one of these touches he could live off right now for himself and he's a demon, so why shouldn't he be selfish?

"It was just pain," he says carefully. "I don't feel it anymore. It went away ages ago." He swallows, "Was more scared that they'd keep me chained down below. To a desk or in an abyss somewhere. Maybe bound to a rock or a tree like the Shinto do." _Somewhere away from you,_ he can't quite seem to say.

The angel's eyes soften. As if he can see right through the dark lenses. Maybe he can hear the words stuck in his throat. Tangled up in the roots there. The choking mistletoe.

Pale, plump fingers cautiously squeeze his, and Crowley fears he’ll melt into a puddle of pitch. “That's when you showed me Britain for the first time.” It isn’t a question. The angel has always been smart.

_If I were smart I’d say it was all a cunning plan. Part of averting the apocalypse. The greater good. Spoiling the upbringing of the Antichrist, but that would be a lie. I wanted to show this place to you. I knew you’d love it. Knew I’d have to spend so much time here. Didn’t want to be alone._

Crowley nods, his voice nothing but splinters, “Once I was done playing at being the man in the moon, yeah.”

“Sixty… Oh it was the Year of the Four Emperors! Of course!” Whether it’s the angel’s turn or not, he uses his free hand to move another piece with shocking ineptitude. It would be insulting if it weren’t mystifying and maddening.

“What? Too proper to say ‘The Year of Our Lord Sixty-nine AD’?”

“Don’t be impossible dear,” Aziraphale says primly, drawing his hand out of Crowley’s. He tastes pine sap, the bitter stickiness seals his mouth. He’s standing on a wind-swept coast, burning fires below, and celestial liquor in his hand. A terrible yawning in his chest. A longing.

Crowley reaches up to his chest, presses against the thick fabric of his peacoat. It’s like opening a valve. Tension leaves his shoulders, releasing pressure he didn’t know was there.

Those impossible eyes, right now the ivory color of a chess piece, follow his hand and flick back to his face. After thousands of years, he should be used to the angel looking worried. The angel opens his mouth to speak, to apologize.

He won’t have it.

“Don’t. I told you, it’s _fine_.” _Better than fine._ _It’s yours. It’s perfect._

“But I,” Aziraphale’s fingers crawl under the cuff at his wrist. Searching out a matching bit of gold in his flesh. “I shouldn’t have.”

“You did,” Crowley moves a vizier, captures a piece Aziraphale so recklessly left open. The angel moves a piece along the edge of the board. His rector—angel doesn’t even call it a _castle_ —and it’s the type of move that Crowley is a bit more used to.

“I didn’t even _mean to_ ,” the angel says miserably. “It just _happened_.” Crowley moves his elephant, unreasonably attatched to the stupid thing. _Should be two of you. Two by two. Let your friend get away, I did. Sorry. Could hang you in the stars, if you like._

“It did,” Crowley agrees evenly, and ignores whatever Aziraphale is doing at the edges of the board. He moves a knight forward. Towards the ill-advised opening the angel left in front of his royal pieces.

“You _can’t_ be alright with it!” _Oh. Look at that._ Somehow Crowley’s in check. His king trapped by his own pawns. The square that holds Aziraphale’s enticing king makes him think of four stone walls and a guillotine outside the window. Crowley slides a vizier back to block the rook’s path.

“I am,” he shrugs. Aziraphale takes the vizier, and Crowley is forced to consider his options. “Why is this _bothering_ you so much? I thought we’d settled this!” He swallows, completely and totally aware of the blanket of bruises at his throat. The quilt of purple marks.

“Because I think I… I’ve… Oh, burned molasses and cherry-centered chocolates, I’ve altered your _feelings!_ You _have_ to let me fix you, Crowley.” Aziraphale grips the edges of the table. “I can’t live with myself if you don’t, I just can’t! It’s too much to bear.”

Crowley tilts his head, “What are you talking about?”

Aziraphale bends his head down. The picture of penitence. “I took away your ability to feel _lonely!_ I _altered_ you!”

“What?” Crowley blinks slowly. There’s a hiss from the fire as rainwater creeps down the flue.

“It’s what I said, when I… when I put my name on your chest.” Aziraphale flexes the fingers on one hand. Like he’s getting ready to do a magic trick. Getting ready to make something _vanish_. Crowley feels his skin tighten down to pinpricks.

“I still feel it,” his mouth tastes like copper. Like pitch and varnish. Like 80 proof gin. It feels _wrong_ to admit to feeling something. The perfect borders of the chess board blur. “You didn’t…” He sucks in a deep breath, “You are _incapable_ of profaning me. You’re a bloody angel.”

“What?” Aziraphale doesn’t look comforted by the revelation.

“I’m a demon, Aziraphale. One of the Fallen. I know what it is to be… To have… You _gave_ me something, you didn’t _take_ something.” He feels the skin on his chest tighten against unyielding metal. Golden mistletoe wrapped on wounded pine. _Please understand me. Please. You’re the only one who’s ever come close._ There’s a tiny bit of loneliness, but he sits on his hands instead. Jams them under his thighs. He needs to _feel_ it right now.

“But, but that’s not what I… I thought…” Aziraphale frowns.

“I can banish it, but I still feel it. I told you, didn’t I? Feels like a binary star. It feels… It’s like touching a worry stone, and it all bleeds away. Feels like _you_.” Crowley rakes his teeth across his lip, “Not a replacement, angel, but a-a talisman.” Every bone in his arms wants to reach up, let one of his hands touch his chest. “Like a release of dopamine. Something. ‘S good.”

The angel sits in silence for a good while. Crowley flinches at the ear-splitting pop as one of the logs in the fire cracks and settles. Aziraphale finally speaks. As though in a trance.

"We don't have dopamine."

The serpent rolls his eyes. "It's a metaphor."

“You’ve been touching your chest. Whenever you think I wasn’t looking. I thought you’d changed your mind… I thought it was… I thought you didn’t... Have you-have you been lonely, my bird?”

Crowley opens his mouth. Lets a rootbound noise fall out of his throat. He doesn’t know how to answer that. They’ve spent so much time together, it’s true, and Aziraphale has been _doing things_ for him. Calling him sweet names, doting on him, bringing him tea, hot water bottles, and yet…

_We’ve touched more in the last dozen days, nevermind the last dozen years than we have across all six thousand plus that we’ve known each other. Why doesn’t it feel like enough?_

“What can I do for you, Crowley? I don’t want you to be lonely, but I don’t want to hurt you again,” Aziraphale looks miserable, fingers flexing.

“You haven’t,” Crowley insists.

There’s a flash that flickers through Aziraphale’s eyes, like lightning ricocheted through clouds.

“You lie.”

Crowley opens his mouth to deny it, but a sound catches at the base of his throat. The spectre of a bandstand surrounds them. The word _fraternizing_ curls like a serpent at the back of his throat, crawls down his esophagus. Gnaws at the knotted roots of his heart like Nidhogg. A thousand forgotten accusations from the petty and insignificant to the acute and cutting flood his cortex.

“I forgave you,” he tries again, softer. Something seems to crumble behind Aziraphale’s hard visage.

“Did you?” He asks the question in the softest, sotto tone Crowley’s ever heard.

“Yes.” If he were to swallow some pitch, would his voice become waterproof? What if he applies it along his lashline? _You came back to me._

“And you say I didn’t hurt you?” Aziraphale flicks his eyes to his chest and back.

“No! I swear it!” It breaks his heart when the angel’s gaze turns something akin to suspicious.

"Then why do you flinch whenever we touch? Why do you lock up and pull away?"

Crowley sits slack jawed. Bowled over and winded. Sucker punched. He opens his lips without even his usual mess of consonants to string along his tongue.

Aziraphale sets his jaw and looks away grimly. As if Crowley just confirmed something. “You don’t have to lie, you know. I told you, didn’t I? You can tell me what speed we need to go. If you don’t want a lot of physical contact, I understand. We haven’t… historically engaged in that behavior. It’s fine if that isn’t want you want. Don’t compromise yourself on my behalf. If I hurt you, then _tell_ me. Don’t pretend it didn’t happen.”

Any other time Crowley would have latched onto that last statement. "Hang on a tick, just, just-who's been pulling away from who!?" It’s not that he _wants_ to admit that he’s ravenous, starving for more of those touches, but he can’t let this stand. “You were pulling away from _me!_ ”

“Because you seemed so uncomfortable! You keep pulling away like you can’t wait to stop touching me! At first I thought you were _tolerating_ me, that you just weren’t… tactile. Except, sometimes… Then I thought you were swallowing your pain for my sake! I’ve been feeling so _guilty_. I thought you’d changed your mind, realized what I’d done. Come to your senses. Realized that I’d-” Aziraphale cuts himself off with a choked little sound.

“You’re so stupid,” Crowley quietly says, dazed. He isn’t sure which of them he means. He stares down at his hands. The long, grasping, endlessly wanting fingers of them. He’s replaying the last several days. Every moment he pulled away or pulled back from Aziraphale. One night he’d left, overwhelmed by the insatiable wanting of the outermost layer of his body after Aziraphale briefly embraced him.

He looks up at Aziraphale, wet lashes hidden behind his glasses. “I didn’t mean-it’s just the opposite.” Is it possible to be honest? After thousands of years of swallowing the truth? “I didn’t know that’s what I was doing,” Crowley shakes his head and looks down at his hands.

Aziraphale has his hands clasped firmly in his lap. “When you say it’s ‘the opposite’ what, what do you mean?”

He shoots Aziraphale another look full of misery. _Are you really going to make me say it?_ “You said you thought I wasn’t tactile, that I didn’t want to touch. ‘S the opposite of that. A lot opposite.”

“A lot opposite?” Aziraphale raises his brows and Crowley nods.

“So much opposite I thought you wouldn’t want it,” he swallows thickly. _Thought I’d smother you. Thought it was too much._

“Oh,” there’s the faintest hint of gold that peeks out from the angel’s shirt cuff. He worries his fingers there, after touching a naked pinky.

“Sorry,” Crowley casts his eyes down at the floor. “I didn’t mean for you to think all that. Think that you’d hurt me.”

“I might hurt you still,” Aziraphale points out. Supidly, in the demon’s opinion.

_If you beheld yourself now, your affections would become tender._

“You don’t want to. You never did,” Crowley touches his chest, resisting the urge to banish his loneliness. To press against that well of gravity.

“I _will_ hurt you,” Aziraphale whispers with awful certainty. His eyes drop to the chessboard. “It’s what I was designed for, how could I not?”

“Then I’ll forgive you,” Crowley murmurs back. “I hear it’s divine, but I’ll do my best.” _Like I haven’t hurt you? Don’t you always forgive me? Can’t you let me do that for you?_

The angel laughs, a weak, wet thing. Crowley smiles back, like his body was created to echo the other. _Fucking destroy me like holy water that laugh will._

“I’m just so unworthy, Crowley,” Aziraphale sucks in a breath that shakes like wind through tree tops. He has never held any lost love for Heaven, but he’s never hated his old home more than at this moment. _I’ll flay them. Throw them into the deepest pit. Wrack their bodies with pain. Whisper nothing but good things in your ear for centuries. Don’t listen to them, listen to me._ “Not worthy of you at all, I’m still so-so _scared_. I think I might be more scared now than ever. So scared and unworthy I _can’t_ … Oh, how did Will put it? …I dare not offer what I desire to give, much less take what I shall die to want.”

“To be your fellow you may deny me, but I’ll be your servant whether you will or no,” Crowley finishes, far too breathless to be respectable. _We’re doing this now. We’re one of_ those _couples. Who quote Shakespeare at each other. (Oh Somebody, are we a couple?)_ It’s a thought too big and terrible to contemplate in full. He has to shove that one aside fiercely. Toss it over a cliff and into the sea.

Crowley suddenly finds he’s willing to stage nightly one-man performances of _Macbeth_ if it gets Aziraphale to look at him the way he is now _._

“Oh, Crowley. I, I don’t wish to deny you.”

“Then let me serve you,” the devil speaks through him, words unbidden. He half-clambers, half-slithers out of his chair, and shuffles into an undignified heap on the floor in front of Aziraphale.

“What?” Aziraphale looks down at Crowley, his eyes widening the barest fraction.

“Did you like it, when I was telling you what to do?” The demon licks his lips. Aziraphale is right. This _is_ terrifying. Terrifying to ask for what he wants. Still, he may as well place all his cards on the table.

“I… yes, that was very, er, very,” Aziraphale looks at him imploringly. Clearly desperate for a polite way to say, ‘ _Yes, that was very fucking hot,’_ without swearing or using the term, _‘sexually gratifying.’_

“Yes, it was _very_ ,” Crowley agrees with a lopsided grin. “You liked it, doing what you were told,” the demon wets his lips; he hesitates. Tries not to think of the last time he asked and got exactly what he wanted. _It’s too much, too fast. I want you so bad. Burn for you like a forest fire. Like clever fires that squeeze resin from wood. I told you I’d want too much, I’d choke you. The mistletoe in the forest of you. Throw me out, throw me on the fire. It won’t hurt me, maybe it’ll burn the need out of me. No wonder you’re so scared._ “I think I’d like that too.”

It’s an eternity, but the answer Aziraphale finally gives Crowley is a little frown of consternation, and an electric sweep of his eyes up, down, and up his body again. The tiniest little cock of his head.

“You tell me what to do, and I’ll do it for you. I’ll take care of it, take care of you,” Crowley breathes. _My heart fly to your service._ “You’d never tell me to hurt myself. It’ll be safe. I promise. You’ll only tell me to do nice-”

He’s cut off by a pair of hands cupping his jaw, and a hot mouth covering his lips. Crowley moans, hands curling around Aziraphale’s wrists like anchors. Like driftwood at sea. Like they’re the only thing keeping him from breaking to pieces.

The angel pulls back, eyes half-lidded and dark. So dark. Like topaz. He exhales shakily, and Crowley feels it against his lips. Like the fingertip Aziraphale runs over them a moment later.

“Oh my sweet bird, my beautiful chick,” the words make him whimper as much as the kisses the angel bends down to scatter along his nose and forehead. So _tender_ it’s unbearable. He wants to shed his skin, his bones, his entire form that carries his spirit.

“Gonna discorporate me,” he whines, squirming in place. “Haven’t even started yet.”

“What if I told you to _let_ me whisper all sorts of sweet nonsense to you? Would you endure it, for me?”

The serpent squirms in place, a high pitched, completely undemonic and undignified noise escaping his throat. The _idea_ of Aziraphale just complimenting him and using those precious endearments has him hot under the collar. Has sweat prickling under his peacoat. He rasps out a slightly deeper sound a moment later, squirming again to try and adjust his unruly _effort._ It’s too much, and it’s ridiculous to feel so keyed up from nothing at all.

“I… _angel_ , but you _wouldn’t_. I’m s’posed to be taking care of _you_.” He congratulates himself that it doesn’t come out as a whine. That he doesn’t sound like he is declaring his entire purpose in the known universe and in every Great and Ineffable Plan is to answer Aziraphale’s best pleasure.

“Can I not whisper sweet things to you, my pet?” _Oh fuck_. He goes cross-eyed for a moment. An ache runs through the length of his cock. He leans forward and presses a moan against the angel’s knee.

“Nnnh.” Crowley wants to say no. Feels like he should say no, maybe. Wants to draw further into himself, but that would mean denying the angel something he wants. Something they both want. Actually he _doesn't_ want to say no. Doesn’t want to make decisions at all. “Think I might explode,” he finally settles on hoarsely. He’s already burning like a meteor. He’s dizzy. Like he can feel the spinning of the planet beneath their feet, and the angel is the only fixed point in the solar system. He winds an arm around Aziraphale’s calf, “Please, don’t… don’t make me choose things right now. Can’t think. Just... tell me, please.”

“Hmm, yes,” Aziraphale clears his throat delicately. “About that, um, I’ve been doing some reading.”

Crowley laughs even as he clings tighter to the angel’s leg. Can’t help the mock surprise that creeps into his tone while he nuzzles against the stupid, lovely tweed of a trouser leg, “Have you?”

“I think,” Aziraphale swallows and Crowley feels his breath hitch as conservationist fingers lift his chin. Like he’s more delicate than the copy of the _Thesaurus Exorcismorum_ he’s worked on restoring off and on for the past four months. (Aziraphale gets constantly derailed by the subject matter, pulling Crowley over so they can laugh uproariously.) “We got lucky, last time.” The demon snorts again, but bites back his sarcastic comment at the slightest lift of a pale eyebrow. “Hush. It worked out, but if we want to… engage in this sort of exchange, we ought to have a word. Something you can say to-to tap out, as it were.” Aziraphale casts his gaze aside and then looks back at Crowley’s face. “I know we have trouble… saying what we mean.” The angel pauses. Lets it become pregnant. Gestates an immaculate silence. “We’ve had to hide for so long, deny this for so long… am I wrong? Please tell me if I’m wrong, don’t let me assume, Crowley.”

“...Not wrong,” he finally says, dragging his other hand down Aziraphale’s lamentably clothed shin. “‘S like that for me too.”

“So for example,” the angel’s eyes are moonstone bright again. Catching pale yellow from firelight bouncing off of cream and gold upholstery. “If I were to ask you, can I whisper nice things into your skin and come up with a thousand new pet names for you, what would be your natural inclination to say?”

“... _No_ ,” Crowley says through gritted teeth. Cheeks flaming. He _knows_ what Aziraphale is trying to do, he was onboard the second Aziraphale even brought up the _idea_ of a safeword, he doesn’t need a lecture on the subject. He's almost as old as the universe itself. It’s embarrassing. He's familiar with the concept, even if he's never employed it before. But Aziraphale does, needs to prove the concept. Needs to see it in action before implementing it. Needs to pick the idea apart to make sure it’s sound. Nevermind that he’s picking Crowley apart at the same time too.

And there’s something rather sexy about what the familiar ground of the academic is doing to the angel. How it seems to ratchet up the angel’s assertiveness without his awareness.

Aziraphale tilts Crowley’s head just so with his fingertips, as if admiring him. Not even ‘as if,’ the angel _is_ openly admiring him. That Renaissance manual on exorcism never had it so good, Crowley thinks smugly. “But would you actually _mean_ it?”

“No,” the demon says, so much softer. So quiet it’s almost consumed by the sounds of the fire crackling merrily in the fireplace. The rain against the windows.

“As I thought,” the angel nods sagely. “So if you _truly_ want me to stop, or even just to pause or re-align… Well, it should be something… most recommendations I’ve seen are for unusual words that wouldn’t come up in conversation.” Aziraphale bites his lip. “What about Eden?”

Crowley shakes his head minutely, still transfixed by the angel’s touch and tender gaze. “Nah, too much… I can think of lots of things to say about Eden.”

The very corner of Aziraphale’s mouth twitches upwards in a brief smile, and it’s _devastating._ Crowley has seen nations fall for less. “What do you suggest, then?” As if he can’t resist, can’t help himself, the pad of the angel’s thumb traces over his lips.

It makes it difficult to think, with delicious, barely there friction dragging across his mouth, but a thought finally clicks into place. Against all odds. “How about mistletoe?”

For the briefest moment, there’s a stricken look on the angel’s face, but then it relaxes into a smile. “I think that will do quite perfectly, actually. Very well. What else do you want, my dove?”

“‘M not a dove,” Crowley protests, cheeks burning hot. _You said I was the mistletoebird, right?_

“My bird,” Aziraphale soothes, drawing a fingertip along one of Crowley’s glass-sharp cheekbones.

“Just…” His throat locks up. He tries to unknot his tongue, stares up at Aziraphale helplessly.

The angel looks down at him; pearl white teeth comb across pert, pink lips. Something sets in his expression, like he’s building his resolve. He lifts a brow. “Tell me,” a finger curls down into his scarf. Sliding between red fleece and purple flesh. “That isn’t a request,” the angel adds, after a pause.

“Just like that, _please_.” He tries to loosen his grip on the other’s knee. Tries to be gentle. “Touch me, tell me what to do,” he doesn’t mean to sound so miserable. He’s not. Except this is agony. Except his shoulders are shaking with relief.

A hand cups his cheek. “I’m taking off your scarf,” Aziraphale whispers, and a breath later he pulls on red fleece. Crowley’s bruised throat is exposed in a single, smooth motion. His skin shrinks down his neck and chest, down his arms, and a whimper unfurls beneath his Adam’s apple. Aziraphale pauses, tense. It doesn’t last more than a second before the muscles of the angel’s face slacken.

“You _will_ tell me if there’s something you don’t want to do.” It isn’t a question. Heat curls in his gut, and Crowley nods. He also knows this will be over if Aziraphale senses otherwise. Senses any dishonesty.

A sure thumb traces down along his jugular, along the weave of purple marks he left there. “I want you to say whatever you want. Any thought that occurs in that pretty head of yours, you can speak.”

“‘Can’?” Crowley bites his lip, and he could weep when Aziraphale leans down to kiss his temple.

“Whatever you _want_ to say, you _can_.” Not _must_. Crowley lets out a little sigh.

“You’re too good to me,” the words slip out of his mouth without thought.

“That remains to be seen,” Aziraphale’s voice is a touch deeper. A little less posh and polished. “What else do you want? What haven’t you told me?”

 _So much._ Aziraphale breathes out one single chuckle.

“Tell me one thing,” a soft hand gently comes to rest on his throat, running over it reverently. Like an artist admiring a finely hewn piece of marble. “Just one of the many things you want. One thing from your pretty, pretty head, my bird. Your pretty thoughts.” _Fuck, did I say that out loud?_

“Take charge of me,” Crowley whines as Aziraphale leans back. Needy words spill out of his mouth without permission— _with_ Aziraphale’s permission—and the bones in his spine churn for just a moment. There’s another sound welling up from his throat, and he bites his lip, not sure what words are lurking there.

“What, dearest? You can say it. Whatever it is.”

“Take _care_ of me.” _Fuck_ that’s so desperate and clingy and _too much!_ He can’t stand how it feels like his ribs have been cracked open. Split apart to display his rotted, sodden heartwood center. He opens his mouth, trying to snatch the words back, swallow them out of the air, when a thumb presses against his lower lip.

“Tell me another,” Aziraphale intones. There’s a heat underneath the words that Crowley didn’t expect. “You’re doing so well,” he adds, softer. His fingertips come to rest on Crowley’s face. Each one feels like a star where it presses against his skin. A thumb traces encouragement around his mouth. “Tell me how you wish to be taken care of, and I’ll make you beg for it.”

 _Fuck_. _That’s such stuff as dreams are made on, angel._ “Thighs,” he says tightly. “Mine or yours.” Then he asks, half-fearing and half-wondering, “You’ll really make me beg?”

“Yes, my bird. I’ll put you to work. You’ll have to earn it, but once you have I still want to hear you beg. Raw and needy as you like.”

“I _don’t_ like,” Crowley all but pouts. There is a pause and Aziraphale lifts a brow. As if to say, _‘Oh?’_ The demon realizes a moment later that it’s an invitation to back out. To use his safeword to escape. He looks down, heart racing wildly in his chest. He feels _seen,_ and it’s awful and scorching all at once.

“But I do,” Aziraphale smiles warmly, and smooths his hand down Crowley’s neck once more. “I think I should like to hear how beautiful you sound when you’ve been picked apart. Maddened with lust. Just for me,” there’s a reverent wonder that twists all of Crowley’s insides. “Now, I should also like to have a fresh canvas to start with, so…” He feels the tingle of a miracle against the skin there.

“Ngh,” Crowley sucks at his incisors. It’s like seltzer bubbling against his skin and then the sensation is gone, a different sort of tingle left in its wake as Aziraphale pulls his hand away. Leaves his throat bare to the air.

“Go hang this up,” Aziraphale sits up and plucks the red fleece from his lap. Holds it out imperiously in a gesture they must have seen a thousand thousand times over. Crowley laughs, but he reaches out and takes the scarf from Aziraphale’s hand. Aziraphale makes sure to move his fingers so that they intercept Crowley’s.

He pushes himself to his feet, saunters over to the hooks, and lazily loops his scarf there. It looks quite at home. Even the terrible weather outside and the flash of lightning can’t put a dent in the little sliver of domesticity.

When he turns back his breath catches in his throat as Aziraphale’s chair now faces in his direction. The angel smiles, straddling that knife’s edge of cruelty and mercy. He’s summoned those useless reading glasses from somewhere. Just so he can stare over them in patrician fashion, “Kindly remove the rest of your clothes from your personage.”

Crowley breathes out a laugh. Somehow that’s still fucking hot. The hottest thing he’s heard in his goddamn life. In over six thousand years of crawling on the face of this globe.

“I’ll do it, but I’ll warn you, I’m not kind.” Crowley starts to unbutton the jacket. He is ever so slightly reluctant, only because he doesn’t want to be cold. He peels it off as slowly as possible.

Aziraphale snaps and the room gets warmer by a few degrees. “Oh I think you are kind, my delicate nykin.” _Nykin?_ At this point Crowley is suspicious that Aziraphale is unleashing every endearment he’s hoarded across the centuries. Every kind and tender word he wanted to utter but couldn’t.

_Pretty sure that’ll destroy me, but what a way to go._

“Delicate!?” Crowley almost throws his coat over a nearby table—and a stack of books—but he stops at a _look_ from Aziraphale. He sighs and hangs the coat up next to the scarf.

“Oh yes. Lovely, beautiful, _exquisite_ is what you are. No matter your form.” Crowley swallows. Turns back to Aziraphale. Trying not to look like he’s thirsty for approval.

He glances down at himself before he looks back at Aziraphale. Reaches for the buttons on his vest underneath the jacket. Always doing things in the wrong order. He manages not to fumble any of them under the angel’s watchful eye. He slips both his vest and blazer off at the same time. It catches on the one shoulder for half a second. He glances at Aziraphale nervously, but the angel is still smiling his utterly rapturous smile.

“Look at you, so smart. So sleek.” There’s the slightest, pleased little wiggle. “You’re so dear I just want to scoop you up in one arm and fold you down and let you live in my pocket.”

His face burns, but he laughs a little bit anyways. “Stuff ‘n nonsense. No wine in your pocket, for a start.” Crowley folds his vest and jacket together on a hunch. He finds there is suddenly a miraculously clear space on a table at his hip where he sets his outer layers.

“Mm, I suppose you’re right about that. Do continue my dear.” Aziraphale makes a little ‘go on’ gesture.

Crowley swallows. There’s a moment of hesitation as he grabs the hem of his shirt. His heartbeat pounds in his ears. Just the barest glimpse of gold is visible right now at the base of the deeply cut ‘V’ of his neckline. Crowley steels himself, and pulls the shirt up over his head in one movement. Rolls it off his wrist and directly onto the table in a heap.

“So untidy,” the angel chides, eyes sliding up and down Crowley’s form.

 _"Really_ angel?” He holds out his arms to gesture to the entire bookshop. Where only miracles are able to carve out a free flat surface.

“I have a _system_ , thank you. And I treat my possessions with proper respect.” Well. Fuck. Shit. That’s _done_ some things to him, hasn’t it?

A strangled noise fights its way up his throat. _Can I be one of your possessions?_ He can’t make the words come out intelligibly. Maybe the parts of his brain that cover speech are also in charge of hardening his nipples, his cock. Maybe he can only have physiological responses or meaningful communication, not both. He reaches over and folds his shirt as quickly as possible. Well, manipulates the cloth in the suggestion of folding it, anyway. He seems to be losing all sorts of higher brain functions.

Crowley glances down at his chest, at the name there. Aziraphale is staring at it before he looks up and meets his eyes. Even through the sunglasses.

“Look,” he manages to croak out. “Should probably tell you… The hours I spent looking at this in the bathroom were because it’s… really fucking beautiful. And it’s all… squiggly, and I can get lost in it. It wasn’t… the other things that you thought.” _I can’t believe I get to have this just_ on _me._

“That is good to know,” Aziraphale says softly. The angel takes in a breath, then smiles at Crowley. As if the subject hadn’t come up at all. “I believe you were instructed to remove _all_ your clothes, pet.”

He clings to the table blindly as one of his knees gives way. “Yeah, yeah, all right.” He fumbles at his waist, wrestles the maw of the snake belt open, curses his fly to Hell and back when the button won’t cooperate.

Aziraphale, at least, finds it amusing.

“Dear, dear. Such language. I haven’t heard anyone curse in Hittite for such a long time.” The angel crosses one leg, rests his hands on his knee. Serenely folded together. He’s giving the subtlest, happiest sway, and Crowley finds he doesn’t mind if he looks a little like an idiot right this second.

“The word _fuck_ only gets you so far,” his heart pounds outrageously at his own daring.

“Does it?” Aziraphale hums, a beatific expression on his face as he keeps his eyes focused on Crowley’s hands. (He’s finally gotten the bloody button mastered.) “Perhaps we’ll find out.”

Crowley starts shoving his pants down his hips, wrestling against the too-tight fabric. Aziraphale grins, and leans over to rest a cheek on one hand. “You might want to take your shoes off first.”

He curses in Hittite again, leans against the side-table and starts fiddling with the boots. Aziraphale seems to be enjoying himself tremendously, and the familiar ground of mild mockery has him a little more at ease.

Like a fucking mind reader, Aziraphale croons softly at him, “You really are doing superbly well, my bird. Following instructions so obediently. So efficiently.”

Crowley sucks in a breath, nearly freezes as he wiggles off a shoe. “Yeah, well. ‘S just getting naked. Not like it’s hard.”

“Oh well, I shall have to remedy that, won’t I?”

“ _Angel!_ ” _I’m plenty hard already._ Crowley’s fingers do fumble with his second boot. He redoubles his efforts, giving the other an entirely invisible side eye. _Fucking fuck, why is his grin so adorable? You look too good when you’re up to mischief._

“I’m only trying to be helpful.”

“Right,” Crowley exhales sharply, working his other foot free. He rips off his socks and shoves them into the tops of his boots. “Course you are.” He slithers upright again and starts rolling his jeans down his hips again.

“Pity you just miracle them on. I wouldn’t mind watching you try and fit yourself into your trousers one fine morning.”

"Who says I miracle them on?" Crowley tosses his head, going for imperious and affronted.

"My dear, the only way your trousers could cradle your derriere any tighter would be if they were woven directly into the fabric of your being.”

He can feel the very tips of his ears heat up. “Noticing my derriere are we?”

“As if you don’t dress for it to be noticed.” It is patently not a denial. A pleased sort of warmth curls deep in his stomach. Reverberates with a roll of thunder.

“I might do.”

“It works. I would have told you ages ago, but then you might’ve stopped, and that would be simply unbearable.” The angel’s smile is less a wicked thing, but pleased and clever still.

It’s almost too much. Feels like too much as laughter stampedes out of his chest, into his mouth. The word _mistletoe_ lingers at the back of his throat. _Can it really be this simple?_ _This joyful? Is it allowed?_

Crowley sucks in a breath, and expends just a touch of demonic power to push his jeans down to his knees.

He’s staring down at himself. At his exposed Effort, already hard and flushed. A little bit of slick glistening at the tip. He feels a tremor in his arms. He feels raw, exposed. Like a pine bark peeled back to reveal the cambium. _It’s not much, but it’ll keep you from starving in winter. Wouldn’t it be bloody grand, to have you just eat the whole of me? If you were starving and ravenous and desperate. Fuck._

“Keep going. Nearly there, chick.”

Every bone in his body threatens to unstitch, to crumble into a miserable pile. Somehow, he rights his shape before he dissolves completely. Stumbles his way out of black denim. Chucks the jeans across the room like they’ve burned him. Crowley looks up at the angel, chest heaving. Naked from the navel down. Just one layer left. He swallows, trying to push back a sudden well of panic.

_Don’t be daft, you want this. You want this. You asked for this._

“Beautiful,” Aziraphale sighs the word softly. “Come here. Fly back to me, my bird.” He holds an arm out.

Crowley shuffles forward, hand tracing over the gold on his chest, following the path there out of habit. “But I’m not-I still have-”

“You can keep those, if you need them,” Aziraphale says softly, adjusting his own spectacles.

“Oh.” He hisses out a long breath, despite himself. His limbs shake a little as the tension fades. As soon as he’s within Aziraphale’s reach, the angel pulls him into his lap. Crowley’s legs are neatly draped to one side, his back wedged against the plush arm of the chair. One of Aziraphale’s hands rests easily at his hip, the other between his shoulder blades.

Aziraphale presses their brows together for a moment. “Is this alright? Is this too slow? How fast should I go?”

Crowley lets out something that could be, understandably, mistaken for a rather high-pitched giggle. Good things demons don’t do that sort of thing, or make those sorts of noises. He’d discorporate from embarrassment otherwise.

“Go any speed you like. I can’t-I just need someone else to drive,” he closes his eyes. Breathes in the scent of Aziraphale. Lets the taste of him cover his tongue. He tastes like comfort, and baked bread. Old books, that fucking _cologne_ with all the right spices and oils that always seem to open up Crowley’s blood vessels in a more southerly direction. Ink and steel. The faint hint of cedar from the wardrobes that store his clothes. Something fleshy and mouthwatering, and sweetness too. Clear mountain meltwater and the most perfect Marsanne that humankind has yet to create and put in a bottle.

 _How do you possibly expect me to eat when you’re a whole fucking feast? Lucky I can manage to down anything at all around you._ He buries his face in the crook of Aziraphale’s neck, not caring about the frames pressing into his skin, and inhales deeply. He picks up some starch from Aziraphale’s collar along with the heady, overpowering smell of the angel.

He shivers as fingertips trace up along his spine. His awareness sharpens to the circles Aziraphale draws with his thumb at his hip. “So obliging. How sweet you are. You undressed so nicely for me. A grace it had, devouring.” The hand at his hip squeezes. “Kiss me,” a thumb sweeps along the ridge of a butterfly wing made of bone beneath his skin.

Crowley slots their lips together, desperately, like _this_ is what he was made for, instead of making trouble. Making stars. He’s sucking rather desperately at Aziraphale’s lips before he realizes he didn’t protest that he’s _nice._ His belly does a strange sort of flip. End over end.

He gasps into the angel’s mouth, jerks back in surprise as he feels a set of fingers wrap around his length without warning. The angel gives him a squeeze, and Crowley clutches the back of the chair behind Aziraphale’s head.

“Now, did I say you could stop kissing me?” Aziraphale tuts softly. Pulls his hand in a firm, tortuously slow stroke.

“Nuh,” Crowley tries to answer, but Aziraphale cuts him off with a rather merciless twist of his wrist. He leans forward, presses his mouth to Aziraphale’s. Not nearly so skillful this time, but no less desperate. His other arm flails until it rests behind him on the arm of the chair. Gripping it like an anchor. He kisses Aziraphale as best he can, his hips twisting and shifting under that slow, patient hand. He spills all kinds of sounds into the angel’s mouth. Until his jaw opens and Aziraphale sweeps his tongue in, devouring the noises directly from the source. The hand at Crowley’s spine travels up and down the vertebrae, weaving circles around the ladder of bone. Threads his too-long spine with maddening touches.

Aziraphale shifts forward, still kissing Crowley like he intends to do nothing else for the next thousand years, and tips the demon back. It’s like a second heart flutters in his stomach. He throws an arm around Aziraphale’s neck, his other star-spent hand clutching at an elbow. He’s off-kilter in the best possible way, but Aziraphale _has_ him. One hand cradling his back, the other slowly palming his cock, their joined mouths tethering him to the moment. It’s blissful and maybe it would be relaxing in a different context.

Right now he feels like he’ll be driven insane with arousal.

Aziraphale pulls away, dragging Crowley’s lip between his teeth, only to bend down and sear a kiss under his jaw. Crowley’s stomach flips again and he gasps as he’s tipped back just a little further.

“I think this time a string of rubies,” Aziraphale hums and sets his lips further down on the other’s neck. There’s the wet pull of a mouth against his skin. Followed by a press of teeth for good measure. Just the right shade of pressure and gentleness against that tender skin. The exactitude makes Crowley shiver all over.

“So I won’t be naked after all? How kind of you to preserve my modesty.” If he laughs he doesn’t have to think about how fucking _cherished_ being held like this feels. There’s a squeeze, a flick of a thumb at his cockhead, and his head drops back. He feels dizzy, and he’s not sure if it’s because of the angle he’s being held at, or if it’s because the rest of his blood has gathered between his legs. Aziraphale shifts the movement of his hand. Turns the full slide of his fist into shallow little strokes concentrated at the base of his cock, barely moving more than an inch, sweeping his thumb with a little more pressure along the base. It’s exquisite. Just on the edge of _too much_ pressure while being not nearly enough friction. Utterly maddening.

He’s reduced to little more than a writhing, squirming mess as Aziraphale moves his mouth along the curve of his throat, leaving marks strung together in his wake. His lip feels raw from where his teeth have ravaged it. Trying to contain even half of the sounds threatening to spew out his lips. He lets out an oxygen-deprived, high-pitched laugh when the angel starts reversing course after reaching the other side. “Oh! Double stranded, how opulent! Unh! _Fuck!_ ” His hands keep moving, clinging to the angel, finding new anchor points. New places to clasp.

“You’re doing so beautifully for me, mitting,” Aziraphale pauses to brush a gentle, soothing kiss to his inflamed lips. “Don’t hold back those sounds. Let me _hear_ you.”

The moan Crowley lets out is deep and embarrassing. _Pathetic. Could have at least given it half a second._ His only saving grace is the slight shift, the happy wiggle Aziraphale performs underneath him that lets him _feel_ how deeply affected the angel is. It makes submitting to the careful, excruciating trail of Aziraphale’s mouth a little more bearable. At some point, Crowley realizes he can’t hear the storm outside. Not over his own needy whimpers and groans, the stuttered, stoppered sounds that rattle around his voice box. He’s leaking like a tap with the handle not fully screwed shut. He can feel it slide down his shaft, leaving a burning trail behind. He can hear the motions of Aziraphale’s hand get wetter, more obscene. Yet no matter how he moves his hips, the angel has the perfect counter. Gives him not an inch more than he intends.

Bloody bastard.

“There,” Aziraphale pronounces, breath ghosting across the very last spot in the chain, still wet and warm.

“Angel,” every part of him is _burning_ —down to his fingertips—and he wants to serve Aziraphale so very, very badly. “What can I do? Tell me what to do, anything you like.”

He gasps as the angel trails a hand all the way up his shaft. Flicks his index finger along that wet slit. “I would have you endure this just a little longer, chick.” Fuck, fuck, _fuck._ His insides are all in flames. _Hell could be empty, but the only devil worth a damn would be here._

“Y’re very good at this,” in Crowley’s own head, it doesn’t sound like a mewl.

By the stars, even that sweet pleased smile threatens to finish him off. “Oh, thank you my dear! It’s kind of you to say so. I must say, I am rather enjoying myself. Are you? You sound like you have been.” He traces an idle circle at the tip of his cock, and Crowley hisses before he speaks.

“Nnnyeah. Ah. ‘S good.”

“So glad to hear it,” the flash of a bastard smile is the only warning Crowley has. Tap, tap tap. That fingertip drums as if in idle thought. As if it were not calculated to drive him mad. He’s tipped back further, without warning, and Aziraphale’s other arm comes to brace him at the small of his back. (He does _not_ squeal. There are certain things that he draws the line at, and squealing is one of them. It is beneath him.)

 _This can’t be my most attractive angle_. The thought quickly dissipates when a hand returns to his cock, Crowley’s waist now supported by those much admired thighs. As the angel lays kisses down his neck. Following the curves and mimicry of human tendons. Somewhere along the course of six thousand years they started to feel less false and more like the truth. Like the habit of breathing. Like the thing that passes for a heart inside a cavern of bone. Where it beats against a brand of gold. Crowley tosses his head back, eyes squeezed shut. Dizzier than ever. _Can you feel that? That’s for you. Only for you._ That perfect mouth lingers in the hollow of his throat. Brushes one tender kiss to each neighboring clavicle. _Somebody, Something spare me, I could only endure all of this for you._

Aziraphale pauses in his trail of kisses as he approaches the border of his own name, goes unearthly still; bites his lip and looks up until Crowley cranes his head to meet his gaze. The demon lets out a wounded noise of affirmation. _Yes touch it, please._ _This thing of darkness acknowledge yours. Yours. Yours._

The angel stays rigid, but then something seems to unlock his muscles. He presses a tender kiss against the first ribbon of gold. Traces his lips down and down until they land above his wildly beating heart-thing. He whines, lets out a rather unconvincing, drawn out ‘ _nooo’_ because it is too _soft, too tender, too much;_ plus the angel’s hand let go of his cock. Leaves it throbbing and weeping between his legs.

A shudder goes through him as Aziraphale reaches up and presses his fingertips against gold, coats a curving arc with Crowley’s own slick. Rolls his finger back and forth in it.

“Fuck,” he rasps out in a thoroughly broken voice.

“Oh,” Aziraphale remarks mildly. As though he’s discovered that he wasn’t, in fact, out of biscuits, but that there was another tin hidden in the back of the larder.

“Y-yeah,” Crowley whimpers, unable to tear his eyes away as Aziraphale does it again. Fuck knows why, but it’s the hottest thing he’s ever fucking _seen_ , and he just wants more. His head drops back completely with an unearthly moan as he pictures his own come there. Aziraphale’s come. The world is completely upside-down, his arm slips out from around Aziraphale’s neck. All he can do is hang in the other’s orbit. His sunglasses riding up on his forehead.

_Be the Volva to my Levania. I’m not a sun anymore, but if you don’t mind it, we can be that maybe. Earth and moon. I still can’t quite believe I’ve moved from that Privolvan hemisphere, that I’m allowed to bask in your light. In your planetshine._

He feels a damp and faintly sticky finger circle around a hard nipple and he thrashes, and he thanks whatever force in the universe so perfectly timed that thunderclap that swallowed the sound he made. That hand trails down his chest, down through the dip of his navel.

There’s a high-pitched noise Crowley realizes is coming from his chest as Aziraphale wraps his hand around his shaft once more. With purpose.

“Tell me when you’re close,” is all the angel says before he starts to stroke.

Each pass of Aziraphale’s palm feels like a blessing. Crowley wonders, dizzily, if he’ll pass out before orgasm has a chance to hit. At this steeper angle, he feels that clear liquid sluicing onto his belly. His very skin seems to thrum under the angel’s hand. Throbs in counterpoint to every jerk that slides back to the root of him.

Crowley’s eyes snap open, and his stomach shudders as he feels the heat coiling too tight, too quickly in him. “Nh, gonna-close, close!”

Aziraphale’s hand stops, though there’s the barest suggestion of movement after. As though the angel had to fight the urge to keep going. Crowley licks his lips, pants hard. Tries not to thrust into that hand as he feels the barest twitch of a thumb.

“I’ve just had a thought.” The fingertips at his back drum slowly. One at a time. _(Don’t fucking think about how fucking strong he is, fuck.)_ “My dear, do you have the faculties to do a small miracle? Or do you need a moment?”

“Ehhn?” He can only pray that Aziraphale correctly interprets that to mean _depends on the miracle._

“Could you apply a miracle to stop yourself from climaxing for the next five minutes? I find I rather don’t wish to stop, but I also want to drive you to the very edge.”

He bites his lip hard enough he’s shocked he doesn’t taste the iron-taint of blood. “Hhhgk. Yeah. Yeah all right.” Crowley relaxes fully, snaps a finger, and anchors his hands under Aziraphale’s knees. “Uhn. There, ah, not sure what’ll happen when it wears off. Might get my rocks off soon as it’s done. Might no-ot!”

His nails dig into the meat of the angel’s calves. The hand around his prick moves a bit faster now, but slower than Crowley would manage, if he were in charge. Crowley twists his hips, thrusting a little more in earnest now. Throws a leg over the other arm of the chair, trying to hitch himself in a position for more leverage. If his cock was weeping before, now it looked to outdo the storm outside.

“Oh you wonder,” Aziraphale breathes somewhere above him, hand still keeping in perfect measure with whatever internal beat the angel has decided on. “Hm, I think perhaps—hold still.”

Crowley stops breathing and goes stock still. Stops breathing again when Aziraphale is using a slick hand to nudge his hips in place, place him fully in the seat of that plush lap. He braces his legs around Aziraphale’s waist. Folds his legs between strong muscles and the softest upholstery known to man. Bends them in a fashion that is probably not actually possible, except for the fact that Aziraphale is asking this of him, so he _will_.

He’s half-spilling backwards out of Aziraphale’s lap, supported by the legs beneath him. The hand at his back moves to pin him by the hip, and that slick hand returns to his cock.

Crowley doesn’t know what language he curses in. Doesn’t know anything at all except for the way the universe seems to narrow and shrink into nothing but the places where Aziraphale lays on hands. Where their skin sings to life. The angel applies just a little more pressure, puts a little more force behind each motion of his fist. Crowley’s breathing goes even more ragged. He can’t tell if the haze is from the pleasure or inversion (or both). His mind is wonderfully, blissfully blank. Nothing but the firing of neurotransmitters and hormones that they don’t have.

His fugue is interrupted by a sudden, wracking tremor that goes through his entire body. Centering out from the base of his shaft, traveling through him like an earthquake. He draws in an involuntary, stuttering breath—but he doesn’t come.

His prick is so _hot_. White hot, like burning magnesium, Crowley doesn’t know how Aziraphale isn’t burning his hand. Something tears out of his throat. Explodes out of it like too-frozen trees in winter. There’s this wonderful, awful, ruinous, subtle pinch, the barest squeeze Aziraphale has added between just the thumb and forefinger at the base of him, and _fuck_ he’s sure that would undo him if he were able, _allowed_ to crest.

Crowley writhes, shudders uncontrollably beneath Aziraphale’s hand. Squeezes his legs desperately around the angel, thrusts wildly in search of a climax that won’t come. He feels something wet along his lash line again. His angel has him suspended so many ways, has him stretched so thin, has him so full of pleasure he’s _certain_ he can’t bear it.

“Two more minutes, my brave spirit.”

Some new and broken sound reverberates in his throat. Undiscovered by modern musicians and scientists alike. The sort of sound that can only be made by a too-long tongue forced into a human body. His vision whites out, his eyes roll up in his skull for just a moment. Blindly, Crowley reaches for his sunglasses. Tears them off his face, lets his arms dangle above his head.

He can hear the angel coo. Quietly murmur indistinct praises that makes the rest of his skin light up like the night sky. All he can do is whimper and moan like a useless thing. Words fall out of his mouth in a jumble. Pinecones shaken from their boughs. Cruses, pleas, words like _can’t, want, need, fuck, just._

He judders, the strongest tremors yet overtake him, and he _howls._ He feels like the spectacle of a wrack. Endlessly splitting apart for the angel’s pleasure. Breaking on a pine-covered coast. _Fuck,_ this is ecstasy. Perfect, awful, _agonizing._

Then Aziraphale stops. Crowley shudders, doesn’t still until a few moments after. He hangs in the balance, trying to catch his breath. His cock, untouched, is twitching. He meets the angel’s gaze before they both look back to his Effort. Waiting to see if it will spill untouched.

Crowley isn’t sure if he feels relief or despair when it doesn’t.

"Oh, you beautiful moon. My lovely Levania _._ " Aziraphale drags a hand from his name down to the trail of hair leading to Crowley's Effort. Crowley becomes aware of just how _wet_ he is. Whimpers at that gentle touch. At the responding twitch of his cock.

“Up,” Aziraphale rights him in a single motion, and the blood rushes from Crowley’s head, leaving him dizzy, blinking to clear the static from his vision. Has him throw weak arms around the angel—which the bastard no doubt intended. Strong arms secure him about the waist. The demon takes deep, unsteady breaths, pressed and sealing his sweat and slick into the angel’s clothes. Aziraphale whispers, a bit softer into a temple, “I’ve got you.”

He doesn’t know how long they sit there. Long enough that the blinding, mind-altering state of need and lust recede from his brain.

Long enough for the blood to return to his face as his brain pieces something together. His tongue is bitter at the edges, like varnish. He tries to keep his voice from trembling, but it’s a lost cause. “Levania?” he croaks.

“I have seen thee in her and I do adore thee,” Aziraphale smiles, adjusts his glasses playfully. _Well I did drop from Heaven._ Crowley blinks slowly.

“How much did I _say?”_ He’s slightly horrified; he tenses and waits for more.

“Oh, so much and very little. I can certainly be the Volvo to your Levania, my bird. If that is what you wish.”

“Fuck. I need you to unhear that,” Crowley presses his entire face against Aziraphale’s shoulder. Suffocates words that might be _‘it’s mushy’_ into the other’s vest. He’ll never tell.

“Nonsense. I told you did I not? You can utter any thought that comes into that pretty head of yours.” He feels a tender kiss at the crown of his skull. Where the whorl of his hair starts. It sends a shiver down his spine. A heat. Like resin melting off a tightly-scaled pinecone. “You’re doing so _well_ , chickling.”

Somehow it’s the hardest thing he’s endured.

This night or ever.

A gentle, gentle hand rests at the back of his neck, "A thing divine you are." Crowley snorts.

"Now that's a lie."

Aziraphale continues undeterred, "For nothing natural I ever saw so noble."

"Sap." He doesn't taste it in his mouth. He buries his nose against the angel's neck. Breathing in the scent of him. The smell of his own sex layers over Aziraphale's, stokes a hunger in his gut.

"You did so beautifully for me, I find myself unimaginably aroused. Beyond reason and measure. Are you recovered enough to assist me, darling?" It's fucking ridiculous how prim and proper and breathy those words sound.

“To thy strong bidding task Crowley and all his quality,” he smothers a smile against Aziraphale’s skin. Overwhelmed by their combined ridiculousness. With the chance to serve his hertis rote. (There are words he still won’t let himself think.)

“Stand, if you've the legs for it."

 _Not my strong suit, but anything for you._ Crowley shuffles in the other's lap and gets to unsteady, new-fawn feet. He suddenly feels small. Gangly. A seedling in the presence of a giant sequoia. Utterly aware of the _mess_ that he is.

“Undress me to your heart’s content, my dearest.” The angel settles back into the chair with a gracious smile, derailing all of Crowley’s other thoughts.

“Of course,” he breathes. For a moment, he wonders if this is a test—and maybe it is, in the end. He bends forward and gently tugs on the cuff of Aziraphale’s sleeve, pulls the jacket from his shoulders. He hangs it without asking, next to his own, on a hook to the right of his. Black and white.

He can still hear rain outside, pouring down buckets. Arks. The rumbles of thunder, however, are a little more distant. Not so close that they crack and rattle like something seismic.

Crowley halts, just for a moment on the way back. Almost stumbles over his feet like he’s never worn them before. Aziraphale has removed his spectacles and is throwing him such a _look_ full of unadulterated worship and appreciation… He understands why some shooting stars don’t make it to the planet’s surface.

“Too good to me,” he murmurs, closing the distance with clumsy steps. He unclasps the cufflinks at his wrists. Sets them safely aside on a first edition of _Ashe of Rings._ “And you say you don’t have a harp, here you have two!” He turns Aziraphale’s hand over, flicks his naked eyes up towards the angel, asking a silent question. Permission.

“You want something?”

He brushes his fingertips along the inside of Aziraphale’s wrist, rubs a thumb over a button before he works the end of those sleeves open. “Just to serve you,” he says honestly, losing a bit of his nerve. Withholding the thoughts he still fears are too much.

“You can ask questions,” Aziraphale says softly. Then his voice deepens, “It’s one of your most attractive qualities.”

 _Oh._ “Can I…” his eyes flash to the exposed sliver of skin at the angel’s wrist. “Can I kiss you?”

Crowley is rewarded with a smile. “I think that sounds hea-well, marvelous. Yes. Kiss me while you undress me.”

Like a supplicant he presses his lips to Aziraphale’s inner wrist in gratitude. Folds the fabric back blindly, lets his lip chase the exposure of the forearm. Mapping the angel by mouth alone. He pulls back and does the same thing to the other wrist. This time uncovering slashes of gold embedded in the skin. The heavy iron of blood transfigured into heavier, more precious metal. Not quite lead to gold, but still a most high miracle.

Crowley kisses each gold-sealed wound, brushes his thumbs over them reverently. It takes longer, but he finally folds and tucks the sleeve above Aziraphale’s elbow. The angel laughs softly, a too-beautiful smile twisting his lips. Blinding as any sun Crowley’s ever built. “How daring.”

“Shut it,” the words have no bite behind them at all. They sound like surrender. He reaches for the care-worn vest next. Spends a miracle to keep his hands from shaking as he treats each button like a holy relic. The pads of his fingers tracing the paths that hundreds of caresses have carved through the fibers before his. The last time his fingers took that holy pilgrimage, it had been with the angel’s bones. From within his skin.

Crowley lifts each of the angel’s arms in turn to pull him out of the vest. The only thing he does to help is to lean forward enough so that the fabric can clear the back of the chair. Everything else he leaves to Crowley, who folds the vest and sets it aside.

It’s too good. Too wonderful, too awful to be allowed this. To be allowed to _do things_ for the angel. _Please, please, keep letting me do all these stupid, useless things for you. Let me be of use. Let me be of service, I know you can do anything you like, make anything you like. I know you don’t really need this, need me. Let me do it for you anyway. Let me pretend you really need me. Let me make you feel good. Feel four-letter things. Let me make something of you, for you, with you. Let me make something._

He wonders if Aziraphale knows his motivations; if he suspects. He’s smart, that angel, he must know a portion of it. Must understand at least a sliver of it.

Maybe someday Crowley will be brave enough to ask.

For now it is enough, more than enough, to be allowed this. To serve a purpose. He pulls the bow tie undone. Aziraphale has never asked where Crowley learned how to tie a perfect butterfly knot, despite having never worn a bow tie himself since they came into vogue in the 17th century. There was no need. He remembers the first and only time he was allowed to perform the reverse. They were at a party in 1811 and Aziraphale had gotten too drunk. Before the angel sobered up, he’d redone Aziraphale’s neck tie, a perfectly crisp and respectable gentleman left behind. Now he leaves the angel half-unbuttoned and utterly indecent. (There’s something that dances under his skin—like lightning gathering in a thunderhead—at being without a single stitch while Aziraphale is only partially unwrapped.)

Crowley gets to his knees. For a moment he feels irrational anger— _jealousy_ —at any mortal who had gotten the good fortune to serve as a retainer, a valet, a tailor, a gentleman’s gentleman for the angel. (Even that stupid barber who suggested the cologne.) How could they have _possibly_ appreciated it? How could any of them have understood the significance? The _generosity_ of this otherworldly being who can do anything he wishes for himself? The anger dissipates and he’s left with the gratitude. The utter _devotion_. He unlaces those Oxfords and pushes them in a tidy pair under the chair.

Crowley reaches out and opens the button that holds the tweed to those hips. Keeps his eyes fixed on the rapt face above. _Be not afraid_ , he swallows, lets out a shaky breath as he pulls the zipper down. Once again, Aziraphale helps out the least amount possible. Lets Crowley finish pulling the trousers completely off his legs.

The demon lets out a shaky breath and plants kisses to each knee, the inside of those thighs. He traces his fingers along the curve of those plump, solid calves. He decides to leave the socks and stupid, sexy sock garters that modern fashion has rendered obsolete.

A hand reaches down, combs through his hair, nails dragging on his scalp. Encouraging more of those kisses, which he is too happy to give. “Mm. Prospero wishes that Ariel were half so devoted as you, my dearest.”

“Prospero was an arse,” his scoff isn’t as strong as it should be. He’s too focused on kissing a line up those beautiful, mesmerizing thighs. Possibly his reward. Unless the angel chooses to use his. Both have their appeal.

“I have been known to fit that description, on occasion.”

He’s not sure if Aziraphale moved to the edge of the seat, or if he simply willed it to be shallower, but the smell of the angel is overpowering. Makes his mouth water in a way nothing else ever has.

“Put your mouth on me. Tongue me through the cloth.” The angel speaks as if he’s issuing a divine edict. With every ounce of a principality’s god-given authority.

 _Fuck_.

His nails dig into the fleshier parts of those thighs. Like a drowning soul clinging to jetsam. He can _taste_ the angel through the cloth. It’s everything Aziraphale has ever smelled like and _more._ Earthier, saltier, something delightfully more human.

_Don’t ever let me taste anything else, please. Give up all the rest. Oysters and wine and fucking chocolate, give it all up for this. Only this._

He kisses the shape of the angel’s Effort. Mouths it, traces it with his impossible, improbable tongue. Lingers at the considerable wet spot towards the tip. _How long have you been wet and weeping like this? Just soaking a spot in your pants for me?_

Crowley traces one hand along the angel’s inner thigh. Strokes it back and forth. Hums a little encouragement when a hand finds its way back to his hair. “Oh, very good my pet,” there’s a tremor there, and Crowley feels a surge of pride. “Remove these,” the angel tugs at his waistband, “then continue.”

He wants to weep. What a _gift_. It’s too good, too much.

Aziraphale doesn’t help at all this time. He _makes_ Crowley hike the underwear down. Makes him shimmy it down those hips, over that generous backside. There’s a lazy, indulgent smile as the angel watches, as Crowley shifts his legs, reaches beneath him to pull the fabric forward.

Crowley realizes that he’s leaked more of his precum onto the floor as he finally pulls the underwear off of the angel’s legs. He darts his tongue over his lips, stares at the feast before him. Aziraphale’s effort is blunt and thick. Purple with want, and glistening wet at the tip. He realizes he’s kneading and squeezing the angel’s thighs, struck breathless by perfection.

Then Crowley does what he does best—he gives the angel what he wants.

He starts with a little flick at the base of the angel’s effort. Spreads those thighs just a bit wider before he anchors his hands on those plush hips. He lets his thumbs follow the natural curve under the roll of fat there, and it feels like comfort, like nestling down under a quilt for a winter’s nap. A secret, safe haven. He spreads kisses across that flesh, correcting the map in his head where the cloth had distorted the truth. The taste of Aziraphale has never been more intense, never bled through his tongue so strongly. _Do I really get to taste this forever? Please let that be true._ He sweeps the tip of his tongue along the slit at the crown of Aziraphale’s cock and several things happen at once.

His tongue explodes with flavor, and Crowley swears he feels a supernova go off behind his eyes. Aziraphale, indefatigable and composed, cries out a beautiful, ruinous sound and darts a hand out to desperately clutch at Crowley’s hair. The nerve endings on his scalp light up, and he moans just before he seals his mouth over the end of that beautiful Effort.

“ _Oh_ , yes my dearest, my sweet, my bird, my pet. You darling wicked, lovely thing.” He slides his mouth forward, wildly struck by the idea that he could do _this_ forever. Not even fellating the other, just this, sliding his mouth down the other’s shaft, never reaching the end.

When his nose hits a wall of flesh, he decides that breathing and eternity are overrated, and works his jaw, sucking and swallowing. Seeking out the right motions that draw out those little cries and tugs on his hair.

“Beautiful thing,” Aziraphale whispers reverently. The base of his tongue caresses the tip of the angel’s shaft in a manner that is decidedly not permissible by regular human biology. He lets the tip of it swirl right at the base of the shaft, just underneath, where the balls join together. He shudders as Aziraphale twists his hand in his hair, grips those thighs to stop from reaching down to palm himself. “Oh, my dear, my dear, my dearest, you _have_ earned it haven’t you? Oh, don’t stop, don’t stop, but you’ve-ah! You’ve earned that reward.”

 _But I still have to beg_ , Crowley thinks with a rush of heat flooding through him.

He pulls back but an inch, then slides his mouth forward again, his tongue still doing impossible, decadent things as it tries to wring out every molecule of taste from the angel. As impossible as the dizzying pattern of gold on his chest.

“Ah, your mouth, dearie me!” He fights a smile, finds the angel’s hip bones with his thumbs. He can’t really beg with a cock down his throat, but he’ll try. He’ll make needy noises. He’ll squirm each time he feels a sharp tug at his hair. He’ll treasure each noise and commit it to memory.

A broken creature cries out from his chest as Aziraphale finally says, “Enough.” How could it ever be _enough_ when it’s clearly _too much?_ Still, he relaxes his jaw, reinstates his breathing. Pants raggedly as he lets the thick length of Aziraphale slip free.

“Angel,” oh, his voice sounds so hoarse now. “Angel, please. You promised.”

“I did,” Aziraphale lets out a fluttering sigh, settles back in the chair. His eyes are half-lidded and heavy as they gaze down at Crowley. “Touch yourself,” he gives the order off-handedly. Like it’s nothing.

His hand feels like it’s attached to someone else’s body. Like the nerves aren’t quite talking to his brain. Still, he whines and wraps a hand around himself. Wet and sticky all at once. He’s never _been_ such a mess. Maybe Aziraphale likes that. Maybe that’s why the angel gave him that gift. The binary star in the mess of him. It thrums in time with his pounding heart. With the pulse in his hand, laid against his palm.

“Stroke,” Aziraphale breathes, still commanding with utter authority. “Slowly.”

Crowley bites his lip, obeys the order, because fuck free will, honestly. He couldn’t understand how humans could do it. Could choose anything other than obedience in the face of a holy, perfect being like Aziraphale. Maybe it’s a good thing they aren’t human. This is better. He wouldn’t trade it for anything else. His toes curl underneath himself. He’s scarcely able to breathe.

“Don’t come yet. Save that for me. For when you’re between my thighs.” _Oh fuck, oh fuck, ohfuckohfuckhedecidedohfuck._

“Aziraphale,” he tries after his vision clears, swims back into focus. There isn’t enough friction with his hand. He’s got too much bloody precum leaking all over.

There’s an enigmatic smile, and the angel tucks his feet underneath him, “Do us a quick miracle. Change this seat into chaise my dear. You have a free hand.”

“Bastard,” he grits out, with too much affection. He tries to hold the image of a chaise in his mind while working his prick with the other, and snaps. There’s an irreverent giggle as nothing happens. “And just… whose.. Whose fault…?” He can’t finish the thought. He snaps again, slightly desperate. Gentle fingertips alight beneath his chin, and the third snap takes. A cream-colored, opulent monstrosity right out of the 18th century sprawls out beneath the angel.

“Ooh, well done, so clever. So _skillful_. I don’t think I could have achieved that with the same… distraction.”

“Wanna find out?” The words fire out without thought.

“Do you wish to touch me?”

“Always,” it’s too much, too honest. It softens that beautifully stern visage for just a moment.

“Oh, my bird… You can, you always can, but can I ask you to beg for it first? Just this time?”

“ _Yes.”_ Nothing sounds better.

Gentle fingers brush his bangs away from his face, “Beg away.”

“Please, angel, let me touch you, please you.” _Let me give you what you want._

“Oh, I couldn’t possibly,” the angel smiles, unable to keep a straight face, sliding down onto one side.

“An _gel,”_ he gasps out his own laugh, hand still palming his own cock.

“You’re already so frightfully busy, and quite enticing to watch…” he wiggles in place, settling comfortably like something royal. A god-king he could happily commit idolatry for.

“Aziraphale, please. Please, I need to know how you feel in my hand, I’ve,” he chokes on a breath of air. “I’ve pictured it for so long.”

There’s a sharp intake of breath he thinks is his own, until he realizes it wasn’t. “Well… when you put it that way,” the angel bites his lip and gestures towards himself. Crowley’s hand latches on immediately. Strokes the other slowly without being asked. Basks in the adoring expression cast down his way.

“I’m doing so good,” it sounds like a question. Needy. Like he’s saying _please tell me I’m doing good_ instead.

“You are,” Aziraphale assures him, a thumb tracing over abused lips. “You are doing so well, my sweet and perfect pet.” It’s like a column of hellfire is consuming his spine.

“Am I good?” Crowley didn’t know is voice could get so small.

“The best,” comes the answer in a quavering whisper. “Tell me a thing you want, chick.”

“Want to touch you,” he’s in that strange, semi-hypnotic state. That fugue of bliss, where everything but Aziraphale is indistinct. “All the time, not just for this.” ( _Too much, too needy, too fast, too something, take it back-_ )

“Oh, my dear—of course you can. Whenever you want, oh, Crowley, please. Come here, come here and use my thighs, sweet thing.”

“Didn’t beg,” he mumbles, placing his hands on the edge of the cushion and hauling himself up.

“You did, and you did it beautifully,” Aziraphale rests a hand at the nape of Crowley’s neck. “Did you need to beg more?”

“I think so.” His eyelashes feel heavy somehow.

“Dear boy,” Aziraphale presses a gentle kiss to his lips that makes him keen softly. “Fuck my thighs and beg me to come, is that good enough? I need you _desperately_.”

“Yes, anything, how do you want me?” The angel is already pulling him down, face to face on their sides.

“Just like this. You shall have to kiss me and let me kiss you in turn, as you beg.”

“‘S nice,” Crowley breathes, letting his eyes flutter closed. He hears a snap of fingers, and the sound of slick flesh.

“Kiss me at once,” the angel sounds feverish, and Crowley obeys, like a comet obeys gravitational pull. His lips are so much puffier now, from so much biting and kissing. It causes some kind of shift in his chest, like the disturbance of a rockpile where his heart should be, when he realizes the angel’s lips are in the same state.

He can feel Aziraphale’s hands, guiding him into place, settling on the back of his arse. He thrusts forward, and _yes._ Oh, yes. He gives into the sensation, slides forward into that warmth. He’s slick enough he wonders if Aziraphale truly needed to lube up his thighs.

Crowley traces his lips around the edges of the angel’s face. He’s shaping his mouth around sounds, but bollocks if he knows what they are right now. He thinks it’s begging. He just knows the velvet heat of Aziraphale’s thighs. The slide of his length between them. The squeeze as the angel flexes his muscles and crosses his ankles. The way Aziraphale’s breath hitches when he grazes his perineum with just a bit more force. The way those fingers dig tighter into his skin.

Their mouths slot together again, and the angel tries to steal his tongue right out of his head. The angel rocks his hips in time with Crowley’s thrusts and he has to tear their lips apart to gasp and press his face into the other’s shoulder. Trying to hold on. Trying to stave off what they have been building towards.

“Ahh, angel, getting, can I? Think I’m-”

“Please, chick, please, just a little longer. Just a little longer, for me. Can you do that? Oh please, you feel so good like this. Just a little longer.” He will do this for Aziraphale as long as he is honored with a human shape. He will do this forever, if asked.

“Yes,” he breathes, eyes damp. Presses a kiss to the angel’s neck. “Anything. _Anything_ , please.” He doesn’t know how he holds it together. He just knows that Aziraphale asked for it.

“Oh, my beautiful Crowley. You wonderful Lavenia. Such a brave form, such a brave spirit, so good, too good to me,” he feels a kiss on one of the marks Aziraphale left on his neck a lifetime ago.

“But you,” Crowley slurs the words, lost in a drunken haze. “O you, so perfect and so peerless, are created of every creature’s best.”

“Kiss me and let go,” Crowley responds with a ferocity that takes him by surprise. He thought it would be languid. An ember burning out, but this is… This is that lightning-struck tree. The sudden flare of a forest fire. This is the death of a star, as his lips clamp onto Aziraphale’s. Like those lips are the only fixed point in the universe. The lodestone guiding his ship home. He clings to Aziraphale, wraps around him and snaps his hips in a frenzy until he finally, finally comes—ropes and ropes of spend hitting the back of the newly minted chaise.

He’s only aware that he was crying out when his voice finally cuts out. He trembles in Aziraphale’s arms like a leaf, like dried out pine needles. It feels like a long time, the only sound is the fireplace, their breathing, and the tempest outside.

“Fuck,” he finally ekes out, eyes squeezed tight against a rainstorm.

Gentle hands soothe his back, “My dear, my dear, my bird, my chickling.” He trembles at each kiss Aziraphale presses to his still-hot skin.

“You?” Crowley asks groggily, his brain coming out of the clouds just a little.

“I haven’t,” Aziraphale pets him all over, just gentle, open-palm touches.

“Want you to,” he blindly noses at Aziraphale’s neck, finds an ear. Flicks his tongue beneath the lobe to get a taste of that skin. “Please.”

Those hands find their way to his elbows. “Would you kneel for me? One more time?”

“Anything,” Crowley breathes, already sliding to the floor like he’s made of mercury.

When he dares to open his eyes, something spills out. Something that wouldn’t have dared, if he’d lined his lashes with pitch. He blinks his vision clear, and Aziraphale is sitting, Effort in hand, gaze fixed on his chest.

Crowley feels like he’s just had a full body impact. His spent cock twitches, aches _painfully_ as he realizes what is about to happen.

“Oh yes,” he croaks out—and Aziraphale spills onto his chest, his neck with hot streaks of his come. He shudders, and he’s hard again. Dizzy. He clutches the edge of the chaise for dear life. He feels hollowed out and empty, used and spent in all the best possible ways. Stretched beyond his limitations in a satisfying ache. Like a seed that needs fire, burned out and opened up.

A pair of hands take him by the shoulders, scoop him up, and he’s nestled against the angel, legs tangled together on the chaise. A blanket is summoned from somewhere. Crowley sits in blissful silence, lets the angel lift a mug of tea to his lips. It’s the perfect temperature and sweetness as he drinks it down.

They sit together in silence, Crowley taking sips of tea until he turns his head aside. He looks down at his chest in slight dismay. “Oh… ‘s gone.” The spunk, not the mark.

Aziraphale wrinkles his nose. “This is a new couch.” Crowley snorts lightly. Well aware of the mess he’d made that is also gone now.

“Won’t you always know that it’s there underneath?”

Aziraphale chuckles. “Perhaps that won’t be so bad,” his voice is warm, altogether too fond as he brushes a hand through Crowley’s hair.

“Next time,” Crowley swallows. “Next time leave it a bit longer. Let me taste it first.”

There’s a throaty little laugh at his temple. “Time after that,” the angel offers. “Next time I shall undoubtedly want to lick it clean myself.”

“Fuck!” Aziraphale’s laughter is clear like a bell. He turns and presses his newly-hard effort into the other’s hip. “Fucking menace is what you are.”

“I learned from the best, sweet thing. Do you want…?” Those fingers graze downward, along the slope of his waist.

“Mm, not now, not yet. Ask later, maybe.” They lapse into silence until Aziraphale speaks softly, as if nervous to broach the subject.

“You know… you can touch me. It’s fine. You can ask, if you feel you must, but I assure you, I want this just as much… all the time. I know it is… new.”

He hears the word ‘scary’ lurking underneath.

“Yeah,” Crowley reaches blindly, until their fingers are lazily laced together. “Yeah it’s new.”

“Did you… was this… Was I acceptable?” The angel grazes his lips through his teeth nervously.

“Didn’t use the word, did I?”

There’s an impatient eyeroll in answer. “Yes, but surely you have well, _opinions_ on my performance. This is my debut as a dominant! You could let me know how it went!” Somehow, he manages not to laugh at the angel so casually throwing out the word dominant.

He pretends to think for thirty seconds. “Oh a cherubim thou wast that did preserve me. Thou didst smile infused with a fortitude from heaven,” he gives the angel a sardonic smirk, which is met with a plush tartan cushion he had certainly _not_ manifested earlier (he does have standards).

_“Crowley!”_

The demon laughs—alright—he _giggles_ as he receives a few more cushioned blows. Helpless with glee and all sorts of soft feelings and endorphins and hormones and brain chemicals and— _God_ it’s nice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *GASPS* This is finally done! (Once again... I got carried away...) A tremendous, tremendous thank you to EpiVet who is the MVP for helping me unfuck this and nudging it into the proper shape. Also Phoenix_of_Athena for some top-tier cheerleading.
> 
>  **References:  
> **  
>  _The Tempest_ by William Shakespeare was the play of choice for this chapter.
> 
> The constellation Monoceros was not created by Jakob Bartsch, but he did chart it rather famously. Jakob Bartsch also was the son-in law of Johannes Kepler, after marrying his daughter.
> 
>  _Somnium_ is a novel written by Johannes Kepler and officially published after his death in 1634 where the narrator learns to summon a daemon from his witch mother. The daemon comes from our moon (Levania) and it talks about how the cosmos and Earth (Volva) might look from the surface of the moon and space travel and stuff. Some consider it the first work of science fiction. There is a an ongoing project to translate it [here.](https://somniumproject.wordpress.com/somnium/)
> 
> I honestly thought it was too perfect not to use! There's a lot of [~~interesting~~ boring history](https://www.brainpickings.org/2019/12/26/katharina-kepler-witchcraft-dream/) behind it too ~~concerning his work and his mother being put on trial for witchcraft, seriously I never knew this about Kepler wtf~~ but I really loved this passage talking about the dark and light sides of the moon:  
>    
> _Therefore, as geographers divide our sphere of the earth into five zones according to their celestial phenomena so is Levania divided into two hemispheres: one of these is the Subvolvan, the other is the Privolvan. The Subvolvans are forever blessed by the light from Volva [our Earth] which for them takes the place of our Moon. But the Privolvans are eternally deprived any sight of the Earth. The circle dividing their hemispheres, named the divisor, resembles the meridian passing through the solstices and the poles of our world._  
>    
> _Ashe of Rings_ is a modernist novel (described as a sort of anti-war fairytale with supernatural elements) by Mary Butts who was called the "Storm goddess." She also hung out with occultist Aleister Crowley for awhile which made me lose my damn mind, and if you've read the incomparable [_Strange Moon_ series by racketghost](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1480787) you know why.
> 
>  _Thesaurus Exorcismorum_ is a Renaissance manual/collection of essays on exorcism published in 1626.
> 
> Hertis rote=heart's root, which is a term of endearment. "Mitting" means "darling." We aren't sure of the exact definition of "nykin" but it is also an archaic endearment and "-kin" was added to words to make them diminutive.
> 
> Pine trees are incredibly versatile in their uses. You can eat pine nuts, make tea from the needles, or eat the cambium layer of bark underneath the outer layer. (Assuming it isn't a toxic variety of tree.) Cambium is more of a survivalist thing tho, and collecting too much risks killing the tree outright bc it's sort of the equivalent of the arteries of the tree. Pine resin/pitch/tar has a wide range of uses including medicinal, adhesive, firestarting, and I found several fascinating videos on youtube outlining all these processes. Pine is ideal for collecting resin bc it has a lot more compared to other trees. There's even what seem to be pine-specific terms for the different types of wood within the tree. Fatwood is what the heartwood of pine trees is called (which is where the resin lives); it is also sometimes, charmingly, called 'heart pine.'
> 
> Also for the title, some pine cones only open up when exposed to fire in a process called serotiny. Some trees rely on this method of spreading their seeds exclusively.


End file.
